Redd's Roster of Restaurants of the Old Weird New York

Betty Brown's Broadway Diner. It was my favorite restaurant when I was 10 years old or something and still lingers large in my early memories of manhattan. I grew up in West Orange NJ and had an aunt who lived in Chelsea (still does) so we'd come in the city plenty and I remember that place so well. They served coffee in giant soup bowl sized cups and I'd get sliders with shoe-string fries. At the time, I don't think I'd ever been to White Castle and I don't think sliders were super common, but what do I know I was like 10 years old. I remember it having really high ceilings and being loud and dark and huge, but again, I was 10, maybe I was just small.

Prune wasn't that long ago, relatively speaking. I went there when I was in my 20s or 30s, it was great.

less early but still fond memory that may be colored by age and nostalgia is Bendix Diner.

prune was a little after my time but luckily i got to eat there during one of my v infrequent trips to nyc, just pre-pandemic. incredibly chill, beautiful little restaurant, owners on hand, friendly, great wine.

Used to see Jim Carroll at Bendix. The Chelsea one, not the East Village one.

OK, so Betty Brown's Broadway Diner was in the space that became the revived Fiorucci in 2001 (now gone as well).

Given Prune's location and the fact that it opened in 1999 I feel I must have eaten there at some point, but if so nothing about it has stuck in my memory.

This NYT article from 1986 (prob paywalled) mentions Betty's Broadway, Florent, and other offbeat downtown eateries:

https://www.nytimes.com/1986/03/06/garden/tapas-tableaux-dining-is-different.html

“
CALL it unconventional, iconoclastic or in some cases bizarre, the downtown style in restaurants is a refreshing change of pace from the starched conventionality of the midtown expense-account temples.

The booming downtown restaurant scene is notable not only for its scope but also for its distinctive style - in design, food presentation and experimental attitude.

Where else, for example, could one eat Spanish tapas, or finger food, in a pastel-splashed dining room with clashing green tablecloths? On one wall at El Internacional (219 West Broadway, between White and Franklin Streets) is a video monitor that shows cartoons and the kitchen crew at work.

When it comes to food presentation, downtown has flair. This can be seen in ambitious establishments such as the Gotham Bar and Grill (12 East 12th Street), where vividly garnished food is set against black plates, as well as at Betty Brown's Broadway Dining (622 Broadway, between Bleecker and Houston Streets), where retrograde munchies such as peanut butter sandwiches are served on Crayola-bright platters. At Indochine, a Cambodian-Vietnamese restaurant at 430 Lafayette Street (between East Fourth Street and Astor Place), exquisite tableaux are created with Oriental ingredients.

Some inspired dining rooms are found in the cavernous former industrial spaces here. Among them are Amazonas, a Brazilian restaurant at 492 Broome Street (West Broadway); the SoHo Kitchen and Bar at 103 Greene Street (near Spring Street), and Bar Lui at 625 Broadway (near Houston Street).

The 1950's diner theme is sizzling hot at the moment, as can be seen in such places as Exterminator Chili at 305 Church Street (near West Broadway) and Restaurant Florent, a bistro at 69 Gansevoort Street (near Washington Street.) Of course what is exotic today is conventional tomorrow. Before long, midtown lawyers may be sitting on diner stools and eating from banana-yellow plates.”

Yes BETTY BROWN’s
I also remember it as huge. Also kind of a blue interior maybe? And big booths as I recall. Kind of a nocturnal Hawaii surfer decor vibe maybe?

Also went to Exterminator Chili a bunch of times

Theme from on Old Weird New York Italian Restaurant

Liking the accidental “on”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iG6s5W5kOY

Nice
Forgot how easy it was to jump turnstiles

still commonplace
wish my shoulder wasn't so banged up

Easier to do with a crowd of friends

https://img.discogs.com/PC5yOZx9ozu7_5mcAAHFb2XOZc8=/fit-in/600x600/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-427787-1421590180-2487.jpeg.jpg

Was wondering what that was coming.

I waited a while for someone else to go first. But it had to be done.

Because you had to be a …

Not old and not weird but still going to mark the passing of Fika a few years ago: https://ny.eater.com/2019/9/24/20882251/fika-closed-nyc

The fika on desbrosses st downtown was super chill. Rips

Yes, that was the one I always went to.

Nice area to walk around in and I loved those big windows on the corner to look out.

RIP Angel’s Share and it’s adjacent restaurant, Village Yokocho:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/08/nyregion/tony-yoshida-japan-village-angels-share.html

aargh, its.

Sunrise Mart too.

I wonder if people are feeling nostalgia for the time when nyc was dotted with bustling neo-speakeasies. Perhaps what we need now is a neo revival of those. Dress the mixologists up in fashions of the aughts.

Just saw something about a new one. Think it is the one in the first picture here: https://www.timeout.com/newyork/bars/the-best-speakeasies-in-nyc

We got to-go cocktails now so…

Is Decible bar still around, down the street from there? Has kind of a speakeasy vibe

Seems Sake Bar Decibel is still in business. This article is really good: https://punchdrink.com/articles/quiet-defiance-of-decibel-sake-bar-nyc/

Then I saw another article in there about the original Terroir in the East Village. I only ever have gone to Terroir Tribeca on Harrison Street.

Damn so many tipsy meals with friends and loves at Village Yokocho and Angels Share. RIP

I didn't go that often but figured somebody here must have.

oh my god i haven't even thought about decibel in a decade. i have to go back

Did you ever go there when it was Candy B1?

i remember liking decibel.

RIP Angel’s Share but really it’s the kind of place too perfect to exist for this long. I’d even be afraid to go back, for fear it wouldn’t live up to my memory of it. a japanese bartender in a waistcoat quietly muddling a cocktail with a long-handled spoon, snow falling outside the window, and the candle on your table lighting up your face from below as the large block of ice in your whiskey settles a little deeper into the glass.

Are you James Salter, Tracer Hand?

j/k of course

Somehow I missed ever going to angels share. Sounds like a very cool place!

It was kind of a place to go for a while there.

"I believe I may have seen one ilxor with a screenname that is NSFW to Google play there with his band once."

James Redd, this post from six years ago appears to refer to me, and I think you are referencing my band's second residency at the Continental, occurring after our four year run at Arlene Grocery. If you know my name IRL and use suckass FB, please make yourself known to me as such!

and no one has mentioned Ole Devil Moon on 12th St!

johnny cakes

xpost loved their breakfasts

Seems like even though the East Village Sunrise Mart is kaput, there are still three other open locations. Walked by the midtown one the other day on the way to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library (SNFL).

El Quijote at the Hotel Chelsea has reopened, but with a vastly different, much smaller menu. No lobster!

huh

have you been? does it seem like it's the same place apart from that? tbf the menu before was biblical in size

Have not been, but evidently the two dining rooms that used to be in the rear - the Cervantes Room and the Dulcinea Room - are no longer part of the restaurant. So it’s been reduced to the front area where the booths are, plus the bar. They’re now giving the menu a bit of Basque flavor, and it seems as if the dishes are smaller.

Wait I just read a NY Times review that says they do have lobster, but in a different preparation (I didn’t see that on their online menu). The linoleum checkerboard floor is gone but not sure what the new floor is. It’s a favorable review that is rather critical of the old, weird incarnation.

Haven’t clicked myself yet but https://nypost.com/2022/06/01/iconic-speakeasy-angels-share-reopening-with-a-new-hiding-spot/

Good news! I hope they find somewhere permanent.