Nowadays, withholding a phone altogether can still help foster, in some small way, a sense of clubby exclusivity.

– – – New York Times 4/21/2016

New York City — Restauranteur and chef Pfkespalier (pronounced es-pale-ee-ay, the P, F and K are silent) will be closing his SoHo restaurant, Saliva (pronounced suh-lie-vah), at the end of the month.

“I couldn’t be more excited.” Pfkespalier said when asked how he felt about going out of business after less than six weeks. “How often can you make a thousand times on your investment before you’ve bribed your first health inspector?”

Pfkespalier credited an article in the Times, about New York City restaurants eliminating their telephones and dealing with their customers through websites and apps, for his success.

“I tried it and, damn, if it didn’t work. The harder I made it to find out the day’s fresh fish, the more business we got.”

Pfkespalier, whose real name is Marvin Hesselfinger, also refused to accept dinner reservations from the president. Pfkespalier tweeted that the sirens from the president’s motorcade would destroy the neighborhood’s “SoHo values,” which included “…being able to toss your dog poop in a neighbor’s garbage can without being spied on by the Secret Service.”

“I had my tech guy lock him out of our reservation app,” Pfkespalier said. “The next day the IRS called me in for an audit.”

The White House denied ever requesting reservations at Saliva.

Pfkespalier insisted his actions were apolitical. “Sure Hilary and Bill got in. But, hey, they’re locals. I’d give Donald any table in the house as long as he’s living on 57th Steet and not at Mar-a-Lago.”

The IRS audit was settled when the auditor visited Saliva to inspect the books.

“He took a few selfies with me in front of the bar and that’s the last I heard,” Pfkespailier said.

The auditor, Lester Galenzinch of Hempstead, L.I., posted the pictures on Instagram and, shortly after launched a campaign for mayor of Hempstead under the slogan, “Elect Galenzinch, a man with no reservations.” A CBS/New York Times poll has him ahead of his nearest opponent by 97 points.

A week later, Pfkespailier re-christened Saliva as an exclusive restaurant that refused to serve anyone.

“I fired the staff, closed the kitchen, sold off the furniture and drank up the booze. After that, all I had were an app and a storefront,” he said.

Within hours of announcing his no-service policy, reservation-seekers overloaded the app, crippling Internet service as far south as Battery Park. Lines of would-be diners stretched for 27 blocks up Broadway, snarling traffic and promoting brawls over who would be first to be refused a table.

That’s when the city stepped in.

Pfkespalier declined to say how much New York paid him to move Saliva outside the city limits. He did characterize it as, “…a handsome figure, one more worthy of a Pfkespalier than a Hesselfinger.”

Pfkespalier has been silent about his immediate plans. However, a search of public records suggests Pfkespalier is in negotiation with several real estate brokers from San Francisco, Oakland, Sausalito, and San Jose.

“I can’t talk about it,” was all Pfkespalier would say about a rumored seven-figure offer not to open a restaurant in the Bay Area. “Long term, though, I’d like to own a football stadium. All I need is a large, empty lot and I can turn away 80- or 90-thousand people at a time. What do you suppose that would be worth?”

A reporter’s calls to the NFL were not returned.