Friends or...Frenemies?

West 50th Street in midtown Manhattan is home to two new fast-casual eateries, Melt Shop and the Little Beet. Both are well-lit and colorful, with some nice design moments, which ordinarily is a very good thing. But these two well-lit and colorful spaces are smack next door to each other.

But there's more. Both places have the same exact chair throughout: the Marais A by Xavier Pauchard (which can be found at Design Within Reach).

Granted, this is a popular chair, especially where sturdiness and easy cleaning are needed, like in high-traffic midtown lunch spots. But I still find it a bit unusual. Seems like each restaurant got the Marais in a custom color (yellow for Melt, purple for Beet), but I'm still scratching my head as to whether this was an intentional similarity or a crazy coink-i-dink. Let me know if you know!