There will be no Prague Spring in the East Village if residents of East 4th Street have their way. Pulling every string and trick in the CB playbook, they are waging quite a campaign to prevent the success of block newcomer EU, an oddly named (given the graphics and logo imply the name is “Soviet Bloc”) eatery being billed as a “gastropub” — which I take to mean “a place the serves food and alcohol”. And they say the East Village has lost its edge. Initially, the arrayed forces hoped to stop them cold, but have had to settle for what is being touted by the proprietors as a temporary ban on alcohol sales, making it, for the time being, a “gastro”.
The residents have good cause to be suspicious. Both Le Souk and No.1 Chinese, just around the corner on Avenue B, started life as restaurants, and still serve food (which, based on my experience tops out at mediocre), before morphing into whatever it is they are now. I can’t claim to know precisely, not having been in either in some time, but I do know that they both draw crowds, hordes even, of loud, drunk and endlessly obnoxious patrons. You know the type — being screechy and sloppy seems to be the only validation they have that socializing has occurred.
The is nothing about situation that is charming or cool or interesting; the entire scene is redolent of what are the worst elements of nightlife here: honking cabs, people imported from other areas, states or countries, who seem to think their embarrassing behavior provides us with the necessary local color.
Unlike a place like il Bagatto, around the corner on 2nd Street, they cannot claim to have been any sort of neighborhood fixture or transformative business, ushering in a new era of safety or conviviality. If anything, the preceding five years on Avenue B were safer, quieter and more interesting.
The advent of EU, brought to the world by AvroKO, which fancies itself a category-busting high-concept outfit (think The Apartment, but with less pink), is not likely as crass an effort as the angry locals are painting it. But even if they aren’t seeking to fill another 50 feet of East Village sidewalk with velvet rope and kids from Metuchen that doesn’t mean there isn’t a credible point about noise and crowd control.
The Frank empire outpost that directly preceded No. 1 Chinese was Supper, just down the block from il Bagatto. Supper has excellent food, but the scene there in warmer months is pretty officious, the sidewalk packed with people drinking and smoking, waiting for poorly scheduled reservations, or suckers for the ’15 minutes’ scam that induces the drinking of pricey house wine.
I’m a fan of al fresco dining (and drinking, even more) as much as the next person, but side street sidewalk seating or waiting simply shouldn’t be allowed in many areas. Or, at least, there should be a reasonable minimum required of sidewalk space. Struggling to get past early evening revelers waving wine glasses and cigarettes while humping home bags of groceries meant more than once throwing a shoulder to the rude and oblivious in front of Supper. The folks are 4th Street fear more of the same.
Why does this tiff look so petty and ridiculous? Any time you introduce the words ‘neighborhood activist’ you induce some eye rolling. Mix that with mealy-mouthed club owners who claim it isn’t their fault the people they just spent all night selling alcohol decide to shriek at cabs and each other on the way out, and blend it all with a confused hierarchy of licensing (the Community Boards get to recommend, but the state has the final say), and the result is the foolish spectacle of the police being called into police the dream of high quality BYOB food in the EV rather than addressing the persistent offense drunks only a block away.
There is a good, market driven solution to all this: restrict business types to side streets with minimum sidewalk width. It’s not a logical regulation — a restaurant doesn’t need more sidewalk than a laundry — but most zoning is a retrospectively capricious process. Since most side streets are narrow, it pushes eating and drinking establishments to avenues, and has the attendant effect of driving down rents, preventing owners from squatting on empty space in hopes of gouging a bar. A friend was recently complaining about line of shuttered storefronts on lower Avenue B. I pointed out it was likely that property owners were asking rents that couldn’t be sustained by retail shops, and the alcohol licensing mess made opening a eatery a dicey proposition (something the folks at AvroKO know well now).
But wouldn’t such a regulation eliminate the possibility of such storied EV locations like Le Tableau, il Bagatto, Old Devil Moon, and my long lost favorite, Les Amis et Les Deux Lapins (don’t believe the hype about the new location)? Yes and no. Restrictions on sidewalk seating and wall penetrations (EU has both a street service window and can be fully open air) will condition the restaurant type. After all, no one is complaining about Lavagna.
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Euwwwww.
There will be no Prague Spring in the East Village if residents of East 4th Street have their way. Pulling every string and trick in the CB playbook, they are waging quite a campaign to prevent the success of block newcomer EU, an oddly named (given the graphics and logo imply the name is “Soviet Bloc”) eatery being billed as a “gastropub” — which I take to mean “a place the serves food and alcohol”. And they say the East Village has lost its edge. Initially, the arrayed forces hoped to stop them cold, but have had to settle for what is being touted by the proprietors as a temporary ban on alcohol sales, making it, for the time being, a “gastro”.
The residents have good cause to be suspicious. Both Le Souk and No.1 Chinese, just around the corner on Avenue B, started life as restaurants, and still serve food (which, based on my experience tops out at mediocre), before morphing into whatever it is they are now. I can’t claim to know precisely, not having been in either in some time, but I do know that they both draw crowds, hordes even, of loud, drunk and endlessly obnoxious patrons. You know the type — being screechy and sloppy seems to be the only validation they have that socializing has occurred. The is nothing about situation that is charming or cool or interesting; the entire scene is redolent of what are the worst elements of nightlife here: honking cabs, people imported from other areas, states or countries, who seem to think their embarrassing behavior provides us with the necessary local color. Unlike a place like il Bagatto, around the corner on 2nd Street, they cannot claim to have been any sort of neighborhood fixture or transformative business, ushering in a new era of safety or conviviality. If anything, the preceding five years on Avenue B were safer, quieter and more interesting. The advent of EU, brought to the world by AvroKO, which fancies itself a category-busting high-concept outfit (think The Apartment, but with less pink), is not likely as crass an effort as the angry locals are painting it. But even if they aren’t seeking to fill another 50 feet of East Village sidewalk with velvet rope and kids from Metuchen that doesn’t mean there isn’t a credible point about noise and crowd control. The Frank empire outpost that directly preceded No. 1 Chinese was Supper, just down the block from il Bagatto. Supper has excellent food, but the scene there in warmer months is pretty officious, the sidewalk packed with people drinking and smoking, waiting for poorly scheduled reservations, or suckers for the ’15 minutes’ scam that induces the drinking of pricey house wine. I’m a fan of al fresco dining (and drinking, even more) as much as the next person, but side street sidewalk seating or waiting simply shouldn’t be allowed in many areas. Or, at least, there should be a reasonable minimum required of sidewalk space. Struggling to get past early evening revelers waving wine glasses and cigarettes while humping home bags of groceries meant more than once throwing a shoulder to the rude and oblivious in front of Supper. The folks are 4th Street fear more of the same. Why does this tiff look so petty and ridiculous? Any time you introduce the words ‘neighborhood activist’ you induce some eye rolling. Mix that with mealy-mouthed club owners who claim it isn’t their fault the people they just spent all night selling alcohol decide to shriek at cabs and each other on the way out, and blend it all with a confused hierarchy of licensing (the Community Boards get to recommend, but the state has the final say), and the result is the foolish spectacle of the police being called into police the dream of high quality BYOB food in the EV rather than addressing the persistent offense drunks only a block away. There is a good, market driven solution to all this: restrict business types to side streets with minimum sidewalk width. It’s not a logical regulation — a restaurant doesn’t need more sidewalk than a laundry — but most zoning is a retrospectively capricious process. Since most side streets are narrow, it pushes eating and drinking establishments to avenues, and has the attendant effect of driving down rents, preventing owners from squatting on empty space in hopes of gouging a bar. A friend was recently complaining about line of shuttered storefronts on lower Avenue B. I pointed out it was likely that property owners were asking rents that couldn’t be sustained by retail shops, and the alcohol licensing mess made opening a eatery a dicey proposition (something the folks at AvroKO know well now). But wouldn’t such a regulation eliminate the possibility of such storied EV locations like Le Tableau, il Bagatto, Old Devil Moon, and my long lost favorite, Les Amis et Les Deux Lapins (don’t believe the hype about the new location)? Yes and no. Restrictions on sidewalk seating and wall penetrations (EU has both a street service window and can be fully open air) will condition the restaurant type. After all, no one is complaining about Lavagna.