After setting up a pop-up in our pop-up last month, Eric Ho and his modular elves at Made in Lower East Side have launched a 7-week project showcasing the different ways their Storefront Transformer can rock the world of an underused retail space.
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Bars + Restaurants
This Actor-Comedian Doesn’t Want to Desecrate His Local With ‘a Particular Type of Woman’
(Photo: Ebru Yildiz)
The bartender at Brooklyn Star doesn’t know Seaton Smith. Perhaps he will someday soon, but not because Seaton’s been a regular for the past several months. Instead, maybe it’ll be because Seaton will be on TV. The 31-year-old comedian and soon-to-be sitcom actor keeps a low profile at the bar-restaurant he visits late at night after hitting the comedy clubs. On this night, he’ll perform two sets in Times Square. Then, he’ll likely do what he usually does: come back to his neighborhood and unwind here with his preferred drink, a Sazerac. Since a kitchen fire took out the original, this Williamsburg location is just over a couple years old. But it has quickly become a favorite go-to for late-night diners and drinkers.
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This Former Momofuku Chef Wants His Pita Pop-Up to Go Permanent
(Virginia McLure)
Good shwarma seeks stable and (meat-)loving home, preferably in Brooklyn or the East Village.
Last night, former Momofuku Noodle Bar chef/partner Scott Garfinkel brought Furn: Project Shawarma to the backyard at Fritzl’s Lunch Box, serving up shawarma (shocker), chicken wings (with garlic toum, chili, and sumac), great northern beans stewed with lamb’s neck, chicken liver pâté, smoked lamb breast, and the traditional Bushwick palate cleanser, Narragansett tallboys.
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Dunkin’ Donuts Is Colonizing Another L Train Stop
(Photo: Kristy Ann Muniz)
If you give a mouse a cookie, he’s going to ask for a glass of milk, and if you bitch about Dunkin’ Donuts in Williamsburg, they’re going to not care and instead keep opening more locations. Just a month after the opening of their widely bemoaned Bedford Ave. store, the popular (and not so popular) doughnut chain has started renovation on a new location directly off the Metropolitan L. Signage for the forthcoming shop has gone up at 527 Metropolitan Ave, former home to the charmingly sketchy Subway Bar.
While outrage over the new location has yet to start, it’s a safe bet that locals will most certainly not be coolatta about this.
Nine Greenpoint Coffee Shops Stayed Up Past Their Bedtimes
This past weekend, nine coffee shops curated by Greenpointers offered special menus, treats, and live performances during the neighborhood’s first-ever celebration of its local cafés. It all happened around (where else?) Java Street. Click through our slideshow to relive Coffee’s Night Out.
Photos by Melissa Kravitz
Stews and Booze! There’s a New Persian Spot in the East Village
That coffee-and-crepes spot isn’t the only newcomer on First Avenue. On the other side of St. Marks Place, around the corner from where Cafe Rakka recently closed for renovations, Parmys Persian Fusion just opened, serving what it says is the “first and only Persian food in the East Village.”
Co-owners Amir and Mojgan Raoufi, from the northern Iranian city of Tabriz, hope to fill what they see as a culinary void.
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The Forcella Folks Are Now Doling Out Neapolitan Slices On Bowery
(Photo: Daniel Maurer)
The last time someone tried to sling Neapolitan slices in the East Village, it was 2 Bros.’s short-lived Totale Pizzeria. But Forcella is hoping to succeed where los dos hermanos failed and has converted part of its dining room into Slice of Naples, a takeout spot serving (you guessed it) Neapolitan slices. It’ll be open from noon to 4 a.m., so, yeah, between this and Cafe Standard, the Bowery just got some pretty solid late-night/early-morning dining options.
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The Katz’s Pop-Up Got Its First Celebrity Patron
After just a couple of weeks on Houston Street, the Katz’s Deli pop-up has its first celebrity buyer. According to its Facebook page, longtime Katz’s cat Jerry Stiller bought the Young and Sick piece that was going for $5,000.
We recently popped into the pop-up to speak to fifth-generation owner Jake Dell about this wild experiment in deli-inspired artwork. Watch the video above to see what he had to say.
Can You Find the Velvet Underground Banana at The Randolph’s New Place?
(Photo courtesy Randolph Brooklyn)
Oh hey, the folks behind Nolita spot The Randolph at Broome opened their new Williamsburg outpost earlier this week. Randolph Brooklyn’s design was “loosely inspired by ’70s punk,” according to the release, and indeed there’s a wall of televisions that reminds us of the Video Lounge that Pat Ivers and Emily Armstrong installed at Danceteria. Scour the collage-style wallpaper that recalls a Sex Pistols or Clash album cover and you’ll even find the banana from the cover of The Velvet Underground & Nico. And (fun fact) the mural in the front of the place quotes Adam and the Ants guitarist Marco Pirroni talking about punk rock (“it was anti-drug pro-amphetemine anti-sex shag-fest”).
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Watch Todd P, Peter Shapiro and Other North Brooklyn Club Owners Talk Nightlife and DIY
While you party down this weekend, the club owners of North Brooklyn will be working hard to make that partying possible — and offering up a dizzyingly diverse array of cutting-edge music, to boot. (For starters, did anyone else catch John Carpenter’s soundtrack composer, Alan Howarth, doing the Halloween theme song at 285 Kent last night? Just beyond awesome.) Last week at the Newsroom, we spoke to some of our favorite nightlife impresarios: from left to right in the video above, you’ve got Peter Shapiro of Brooklyn Bowl, Jify Shah of Cameo, Jake Rosenthal of Glasslands, John Barclay of Bossa Nova Civic Club, and Todd Patrick of 285 Kent and Market Hotel.
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