Owner Marco Lanuto at counter. (Photos: Daniel Maurer)
While you’re putting the new Taiwanese fried food joint on your list of drunk food options in the East Village, add this one as well: FryGuys is grand-opening tonight on East 2nd Street, and is already serving up gonzo french fries topped with ingredients like fried chicken and guacamole.
Marco Lanuto, who lived in the East Village when he first moved to New York, has taken over the old Nicky’s Vietnamese space with his girlfriend and business partner McKenzie Foster, and they’ve given the tiny nook a cheerful makeover. The floors are made from vinyl records fixed in epoxy, the walls are covered in throwback New York memorabilia such as photos of Lou Reed and the Twin Towers, and disco balls hang from the ceiling.
As for the specialty, Lanuto described his and Foster’s ideal fry as a “classic, thick, steak-cut french fry”; here, they’re double cooked, drizzled with melted cheese, topped with bacon and guacamole, and dubbed the Drunk Guy.
Or you can opt for the Southern Guy: waffle fries mixed with diced, double-fried chicken and slathered in maple-syrup gravy. (Check out the full menu here.)
“It’s lot about having a good time, it’s a lot about not being too pretentious,” Lanuto told us. Hence the mural of fry-loving kittens, by local artist Resa.
Needless to say, FryGuys is open late. They go till 2am on weekdays and 4am on weekends.
FryGuys, 150 East 2nd St., nr. Avenue A, 917-319-7179.