Say it with … sushi?!
This February, creative millennial New York City couples are signing up for sushi-making classes to spend Valentine’s Day creating heart-shaped rainbow rolls with their one and only.
Rolling your own sushi might strike some couples as a chore, but many New Yorkers, particularly millennials, crave offbeat experiences instead of material purchases.
The typical order on date-night-idea Web site Vimbly comes in at around $60 per person, and many experiences in that price range — including a dessert-shop tour of Chelsea for $100 a couple — provide relatively affordable romance in one of the world’s most expensive cities.
This consumer-spending shift is putting pressure on old-school businesses, from chocolatiers to jewelers, to offer more classes and customization, while transforming the way New Yorkers spend money on the busiest day of the year for florists and candy stores.
“People are looking to make memories rather than buy stuff,” said Manhattan chocolatier Rhonda Kave, who recently transformed Roni-Sue’s Chocolates from a traditional candy store into an atelier more focused on classes.
At Vimbly, which offers more than 380 Valentine-themed events in New York, bookings spiked 57 percent in the week leading up to the holiday, with strong demand for sushi-making and painting classes.
The sushi class sets couples back $300. That’s $200 more than a traditional gift of a dozen long-stemmed red roses from Starbright Floral Design, but roughly the price of dinner for two, complete with champagne and panoramic city views, at the Westlight bar in Williamsburg’s William Vale hotel.
To corral the experience-seekers, businesses and cultural institutions are emphasizing the unique or artisanal.
The American Museum of Natural History sold all 800 seats to its $125-a-ticket Valentine’s Day dinner at the Hayden Planetarium several weeks ago.
A Slice of Brooklyn is known for pizzeria tours, but a new artisanal chocolate shop tour, which costs $50 for adults, is quickly becoming almost as popular, especially for Valentine’s Day.
Florists and jewelers are retooling too. Starbright Floral Design senior partner Nic Faitos has added staff in Manhattan to save time during the all-important office-delivery window of 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., when 80 percent of his Valentine’s Day orders must land on recipients’ desks. Greenwich St. Jewelers once catered mainly to Wall Street, but, thanks to a social media push — the 750-square-foot store has 24,000 followers on Instagram — now attracts customers from Harlem to Brooklyn.
Owner Jennifer Gandia is offering customized perks such as a private trunk show of a long-term client’s favorite designers complete with champagne and chocolate this Valentine’s Day.
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