If you’ve been to Artichoke’s relatively new location in the old Northeast Kingdom space, chances are you were too blotto to notice the steps leading to the basement. Turns out, the calorie-slinging pizzeria just opened a classy, banquette-lined venue in the cellar. Tonight at 10pm, a new comedy night debuts there.
Auggie Lutz, who hosts two monthly shows at nearby Pine Box Rock Shop, is MCing this one with Bob Palos, his co-host at Lantern Hall. Lutz says he’s hoping to get something “cool, fun, intimate” going—similar to the free shows he used to catch in the back room of bygone Kabin bar in the East Village. “That was around for years where comedians would hang out, people would go every week and it was a reliably good show,” he said, recalling that Louis CK once dropped in.
So will Louie drop in here? Who knows. The guy did once say his only fantasy is being one of those “dudes in Bushwick.” Lutz agrees that the neighborhood is happening: “A lot of people hate on Bushwick because it’s a hip place or whatever but there’s a lot of comedy there, it’s great.”
One TV regular you can expect to catch at Comedy Under Artichoke Pizza, in a couple of weeks, is Aparna Nancherla, from Judd Apatow and Pete Holmes’s fun new HBO show about aspiring NYC standups, Crashing. In the meantime, tonight’s show, which is free, will feature comedians whose work you may have seen on Comedy Central and MTV: Casey James Salenco, Jordan Temple, Kerry Coddett, Sarah Tollemache, and Ben Kronberg, who’s kind of like Demetri Martin, but with edgier jokes and better hair.
When I asked Lutz whether he had any pizza jokes lined up for the Artichoke gig, he said he didn’t. Which is probably for the best, cuz that shit’s cheesy.