Question: When the PR team for a restaurant starts focusing almost all their energy on the downstairs club and promotes the upstairs as a bar/lounge/party spot, is said restaurant officially dead? We're going to drop the hammer and say yes and declare that FROG—which PR people are now describing as a good place for a cocktail and a party (and if you get hungry a snack)— is dead. We have to hand it to the owners and the team at Steve Hall PR for learning how to adapt and for recognizing that a failure of a restaurant can be transformed into a somewhat successful lounge and club. That, friends, is how you survive a year on the Deathwatch.
That said, the operation over at 71 Spring is not leaving the hospice just yet. We're still waiting on early reports from public, but from what we could tell from the incredibly rocky launch party/press dinner last night, they aren't in the clear. Let's get to the hangover observations. (This might get dirty so we advise the folks over at Steve Hall PR to avert their eyes.)
From a press release announcing the new lounge opening in FR.OG's lower level, Origine: "The period has been dropped; a new chef has been added, and now a sparkling new lounge called Origine opens on the lower level to jumpstart the second year of FROG." The release goes on to discuss the lounge, the management, the crowds it will attract, the new chef, but never returns to the big issue here: the name change. Remember, if you will, that FROG née FR.OG entered the Deathwatch list on its very first day of existence namely because of its...name. Soon after, Bruni himself called out the restaurant for its terrible nomenclature (though the period mattered little to the man):
"I mean: FROG? (I’ve omitted the period to illustrate the point.) Isn’t that a derisive nickname for the French, whose food is presumably being treated with respect here?...Once again: FROG?"
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From a press release announcing the new lounge opening in FR.OG's lower level, Origine: "The period has been dropped; a new chef has been added, and now a sparkling new lounge called Origine opens on the lower level to jumpstart the second year of FROG." The release goes on to discuss the lounge, the management, the crowds it will attract, the new chef, but never returns to the big issue here: the name change. Remember, if you will, that FROG née FR.OG entered the Deathwatch list on its very first day of existence namely because of its...name. Soon after, Bruni himself called out the restaurant for its terrible nomenclature (though the period mattered little to the man): 
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