Business as Usual?

This is a partial transcript from Your World with Neil Cavuto, September 10, 2002, that was edited for clarity. Click here for complete access to all of Neil Cavuto's CEO interviews.

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NEIL CAVUTO, HOST: Well, should it be business as usual tomorrow? Our next guest says, you bet. He owns five New York restaurants, actually, six. He's not closing one of them. Joining me now is Drew Nieporent, he is the president of the Myriad Restaurant Group.

Drew, thanks for coming.

DREW NIEPORENT, PRES., MYRIAD RESTAURANT GROUP: Thank you for having me.

CAVUTO: Business as usual?

NIEPORENT: Yes, I mean, we thought about closing certainly several months ago. And actually at that time I was thinking that was the right thing to do. But as time has progressed I realized we take our cues from the people who lost the most. And those people are getting on with their lives and setting a great example in that. So that is exactly what we are going to do. At some point there has to be closure, hopefully after tomorrow, there will be at least some, and certainly for businesses downtown, we need the people to be reminded that they need to support us downtown.

CAVUTO: Now some of your restaurants are destinations in themselves, Nobu, Tribeca Grill, I mean, they are destinations in themselves. Were they hit after the attacks?

NIEPORENT: Well, we were closed. All restaurants that I own are below Canal Street.

CAVUTO: So it had to be shut down.

NIEPORENT: Yes. We were shut down for two full weeks. And there was so much uncertainty. And we have over a thousand employees in those restaurants. So we have a commitment for there not to be further victimization of our employees.

CAVUTO: Now you have had a colored career, you're one of the more successful restaurateurs in the world. You could have gone anywhere. You stuck with New York.

NIEPORENT: First of all, it is my city, I grew up here, and second of all, the integrity of downtown especially, it is great to see the way the people responded.

CAVUTO: One of your biggest customers, Robert De Niro.

NIEPORENT: Well, Robert De Niro, great customer, great partner, and he also responded well, you know, we had the Tribeca Film Festival which brought a lot of attention to Lower Manhattan. And quite frankly, anybody who did something to help out, because there was such an unbelievable effort obviously to recover and rescue obviously in those ensuing days, it was incredible.

CAVUTO: Did you have any doubt that we could come back?

NIEPORENT: There was a great deal of uncertainty, but New Yorkers are resilient. And we had a good battle cry from the mayor. He told us, let's get back to normal and we listened to that.

CAVUTO: Drew Nieporent, thank you very much.

NIEPORENT: See you downtown.

CAVUTO: I am down there a lot.

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