Charmed. That was the overall feeling that lingered after exiting Tamsin Lonsdale’s Supper Club opening party for the Hudson Sky Terrace last night. To be frank, I was not expecting it to pan out this way. Upon arriving (on time, which apparently is not the thing to do at Supper Club events), I was greeted by ethereal servers dressed in cultish white with freakish Eyes Wide Shut smiles -- unnerving for a girl who had never been to a Supper Club event, who was brazenly going solo, and who had arrived to a near-empty terrace on the 15th floor of the Hudson Hotel.

I've been talking lately about how my career as a hospitality designer can be used as a sort of canary in a coal mine to judge the state of our economy. As a firm, we picked up very little new work from mid-December until just recently. At one point, we had 16 jobs on hold while our clients secured loans. Ten of those jobs have in the last few weeks given us a call and indicated positive movement forward or in fact funding coming through. This means jobs. The restaurants and clubs I am building will need to hire staff two to six months down the line. People who have been futilely looking for gigs might be back on track.