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

Cause it's not just record stores that have gone

Florent

The Kiev

Lucky Strike

La Jumelle

Cafe Colonial

(There seems to be a new place with this name but it is not Brazilian)

Lucky Strike

Rio Mar

Yaffa Cafe

Still there:
Veselka

The Bagel, 170 W 4th (Jones Street)

Caffe Carciofo, 248 Court Street (Boerum Hill)

Brasserie Les Halles, 411 Park Ave S. (Gramercy/Flatiron)

Still a downtown location open though

This one is very long gone, probably only lasted a few years, but James Redd spent a lot of time there back in the day so

Bernard Organic French Cuisine, 145 Avenue C (seems to me he floated another name for a while "Du Marche")
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/12/09/arts/diner-s-journal.html

I miss Florent most of all. To serve drunk people awesome boudin noir at 3 in the morning was a great service to humanity.

Kiev was the first place I ever ate at in NYC. Allen Ginsberg was eating at the table next to me.

Others that come to mind right now:

Café Bruxelles

Cookies and Couscous (tiny place on Thompson St.)

Flea Market Café

Chez Brigitte

Mexicana Mama

Max & Moritz (Brooklyn)

Bamiyan

Miss Florent a lot too. Loved the location, walking all the way down Gansevoort Street, loved the genuinely French aura of nonchalant glamour combined with good food and reliable service.

Another one I miss a lot, Roetelle A.G., 126 East 7th Street (East Village, obv) mostly Swiss, but with German, Italian and French thrown in as well- didn't they have little country shapes on the map to indicate which cuisine it came from. Loved the spätzle and the sauerbraten. Looks like she a few years ago she opened a place called Heartbreak on Second Avenue that didn't fare too well.

Mekong, 18 King Street (Soho), Reliably delicious and fun Vietnamese place. Just closed this April.

http://www.grubstreet.com/2016/04/mekong-soho-nyc-closing.html

Ah, yes, original location was 44 Prince Street (Little Italy, Nolita). Doubt I ever went to the King Street location. Eric Asimov review here:
http://events.nytimes.com/mem/nycreview.html?res=9B0CE2DD153FF931A3575BC0A960958260

Grano Trattoria, 21 Greenwich Ave (West Village). Specialized in game, but fine for other stuff as well. Closed last April (2015).

Empire Diner, 210 W 22nd Street (Chelsea). Classic Art Deco decor, one could imagine it was built simultaneously with the Empire State Building. Seems to have closed for the last time last year- OR DID IT? Wikipedia page has mixed tenses and webpage is still running: http://empire-diner.com/

http://ny.eater.com/2015/12/14/10070660/nyc-empire-diner-closed

The Bagel, 170 W 4th (Jones Street)

― Tarzan v. BMI (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, July 3, 2016 11:03 PM (Yesterday)

La Bonbonniere, 28 8th Avenue between Jane & 12th (West Village)
http://vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com/2009/10/la-bonbonniere.html

The Moondance Diner, 80 6th Avenue, between Grand and Canal (South Village), which you may have seen in movies and television although not, apparently, in Afterhours, according to Alex in NYC

Apparently the whole structure was moved to Wyoming in 2007 and the diner was reopened in 2008 only to fail again.

I made it to the last Sat night at the Empire, last October.

Ate at the Bagel a few times.

The Hat (El Sombrero) on the LES

Still there, used to be reasonably reliable, haven't set foot in for years:

French Roast, 78 West 11 (West Village)

Bizarre novelty place we used to go to a few decades ago
The Royal Canadian Pancake House (Multiple locations, original one was in Tribeca, near Wetlands, can't find addres). The RCHP (not to be confused with the RHCP) served outrageously oversized pancakes and omelettes that nobody could finish. Went belly up in 1998

Ah, yes The Hat (El Sombrero). Good call!

Did it reopen? Around the corner?

Went to Moondance all the time during high school / college years. They used to put cinnamon in their coffee. Also The dude who wrote Rent used to work there.

Favorite all time place was Jones Diner on Lafayette and great jones. Old Greek standalone place, booths on one side, counter on the other, sign for "HOT CHILLY $2.95" written on a paper plate above the grill, owner taking your order and yelling "gimme a cheese deluxe!" Now of course it's a parking lot or condos or whatever. Fuck Manhattan

Another one I miss a lot, Roetelle A.G., 126 East 7th Street (East Village, obv) mostly Swiss, but with German, Italian and French thrown in as well- didn't they have little country shapes on the map to indicate which cuisine it came from. Loved the spätzle and the sauerbraten. Looks like she a few years ago she opened a place called Heartbreak on Second Avenue that didn't fare too well.

― Tarzan v. BMI (James Redd and the Blecchs

Definitely ate at Roetelle A.G. more than a couple of times, though I never would've recalled the name

Another place I loved was the German restaurant Silver Swan on E. 20th St.

The Silver Swan closed? Ugh. When? Looks like 2008. I used to go there with some friends who had a tradition of meeting there for the holidays a little before Christmas.

It's extra sad because there's not even another restaurant like the Silver Swan, as far as I know.

NYC dining is really weird, because you might frequent a place at a certain point in time and then forget about it for ten years and then one day you think of it again and your'e surprised to hear it closed years ago. Or alternately, you're stunned to find out a place you used to frequent back in the day is still in business.

Yes, exactly. That is pretty much why I started this thread, since I had forgotten a lot since I hadn't been to many of these places in a decade or two and was trying to fight back a little to preserve the last shreds of remaining memory. Maybe the grass is greener, but whenever I have managed to get over to Paris, I usually find a good many places are still in the same place, still going strong as far as I can tell, perhaps with several familiar faces among the staff.

Old time conveniently located West Village destination:

Jimmy Day's/ Boxer's, 190 W 4th, Corner Barrow, therefore lots of windows.

Seems to have recently been something called Oliver's City Tavern which is also closed.

Place I can't really find any mention of- except in a long unedited list at http://www.marinersguide.com/regions/greatlakes/newyork.ny/restaurants.html

Butler's, 145 Fulton Street (Financial District)

Old school cafeteria steam table place, excellent for lunch. Used to get a roast beef hero w/ gravy and a side of cheese fries, iirc.

I wonder why a lot of these places I miss are French. There was also L'Acajou, kind of a diner but one with great French food, on W. 19th St. where the tapas joint Boqueria is now. I remember the French lady who owned the place, she had a weird kind of tattoo where one of her ears was completely colored green.

Um, it's perhaps a cliche, but think French places really do have a lot of personality and ambience in addition to the culture of cuisine.

Speaking of which, trying to remember the small French cafe on Sullivan or Thompson maybe there were two branches, where you would go to get a classic cafe au lait and croque-monsieur. For all I know it is still there.

if we can expand to bars that served food and little cafes

Cafe La Fortuna on 71st off Columbus
All State Cafe on 72nd near West End Ave
P & G on 73rd and Amsterdam

I miss the Upper West Side of the 70s and 80s i guess

I remember the Silver Swan, had an office party there that was a crazy drunken affair as all office parties should be

Please feel free to expand.

Can't find or remember croque-monsieur place yet.

Did come across this list which has a few of these places including one I never really went to but I have seen is closed recently

Mezzogiorno, 195 Spring Street at Sullivan (Soho)

Kiev was the first place I ever ate at in NYC. Allen Ginsberg was eating at the table next to me

Such as

Still there, used to be reasonably reliable, haven't set foot in for years:

French Roast, 78 West 11 (West Village)

anyone remember "Top of the Sixes" at 666 5th Ave
I went there a couple of times in the early 90s when it was on its last legs, looked really tired and stale but still had that crazy view

i adored the Kiev

Or

'ino, 21 Bedford Street, near Downing (West Village)

TIny panini place, seems to have been -one of the? -first in NYC, conveniently located around the block from the Film Forum.

Celebrity sighting: Marisa Tomei.

Kiev was the first place I ever ate at in NYC. Allen Ginsberg was eating at the table next to me

Good details! I need to add celebrity sightings when I post, if remembered

And of course, that being my first NYC meal, I thought, "this is what always happens in New York, you walk into a random diner and there's a famous person eating next to you." And then nothing like that happened to me again for years.

(But I have dined next to Steve Buscemi in Brooklyn, and Mary Harron - director of American Psycho - at Flea Market Café).

(that was xp)

Yes, of course Top of the Sixes was lots of fun, thanks for reminding, barely remember.

Also have dim memory of some little cafe, perhaps burgers a specialty nestled deep inside of a hotel or office building perhaps in the same vicinity.

Is Cafe Reggio too iconic for this thread? I was there not too long ago.

Speaking of which, trying to remember the small French cafe on Sullivan or Thompson maybe there were two branches, where you would go to get a classic cafe au lait and croque-monsieur. For all I know it is still there

Country Café? I almost mentioned that one, it was on Thompson - that location is gone but there's a branch in the Financial District

or are we specifically talking about places no longer in existence

No not Country Cafe, it had a French name, had a wooden chair or chairs a la Van Gogh's NIght Cafe, I think, coffee served in authentic big white bowls.

Is Cafe Reggio too iconic for this thread? I was there not too long ago.

― socka flocka-jones (man alive), Monday, July 4, 2016 4:43 AM (38 seconds ago)

Still there:

Coffee Shop, 29 Union Square West
Celebrity sighting: David Lee Roth, sitting outside, people watching

Noho Star, 330 Lafayette Street
Celebrity sightings: Wallace Shawn (several times, a regular), Sheryl Crow, Maggie Cheung (outside, through the window, perhaps talking to Olivier Assayas, has seen the two of them some period of time before, perhaps a week or a month, at the Film Forum when they introduced Irma Vep)

How's Bayou in Tribeca (Greenwich maybe?) was big in the 80s when Cajun was an actual thing, went there often in the late 80s.
Ludlow Street Cafe was more of a 90s thing for me

Mezzogiorno, 195 Spring Street at Sullivan (Soho)

This place was good, but really overpriced. For me it goes in the category of places I assumed were still open even though I haven't eaten there in ten years.

Ohh
I went there 2 or 3 times as a kid, probably after music lessons at Greenwich house

what was the name of that tiny Thai spot in the EV with the far out mod decor, anyone remember?

i live just down the street from that Hungarian bakery near Columbia, never go there anymore for some reason.

I can understand that.

probably because it's full of Columbia students who hang out and read all day.

alt.coffee was my spot for buying a can of Irn Bru and hanging out and chain smoking the rest of the day.

Salad days

yeah def

Columbia profs too iirc

a few profs and neighborhood people, but overwhelmingly students. i
like the place but tend to avoid crowded places with loud teenagers.

this neighborhood feels more like a college campus every year, most of our old restaurants have been replaced with fast casual joints at this point.

I like the place but tend to avoid crowded places with loud octogenarians.

alt.coffee was the best, and I didn't even live there.

I'm still friends with some of the people i met individually at alt.coffee and they are the most 'out-there' people i've known in my life.

some of them have kids now 👽👦👧

The owner of alt.coffee also ran Cake Shop and just bought the old Pyramid Clib and is turning it into a new club.

and Library Bar and Bruar Falls and i think also Alphaville. never felt anything close to the same affection for any of those places as alt.coffee. it attracted a more out crowd.

extent of my interactions with the owner in the alt.coffee days:
-there was a Bartlebees album in their CD rack i'd been curious to hear, so i asked him to put it on (it was too scratched to play, so he described it to me instead)
-"when are you getting more Irn Bru?"

i was a teenager and sensed that the ownership and staff found my friends and i a little annoying (fair, obv). might have left an art portfolio with someone there once, more likely just thought about it and never actually did.

iirc they closed alt and reopened it as a kiddie/daycare cafe in the mid 00's in response to increased stroller traffic on ave a and declining crust punk numbers. i moved to long island for a couple of years right around then, knew nothing about this. remember walking in there one day and going "wtf is this??"

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/08/nyregion/08coffee.html

https://www.amny.com/news/internet-cafe-rewires-itself-for-the-new-kiddie-boom/

the kiddie incarnation was called Hopscotch

Think I may need to get this book: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/julia-wertz/tenements-towers-trash/9780316501217/?lens=black-dog-leventhal

*bump*

Serge Raoul, the founder of Raoul's in Soho, passed away this month at 86.

(the restaurant is still in business)

This is a good blog to keep an eye on... https://evgrieve.com

Aggie’s on Houston and Sullivan. Don’t remember the fare but went there often in the 90s

if anyone has Liedy's Shore Inn on SI on their list of old NY bars to visit, sounds like March 30th is their last day. Was there over the weekend (Chris Spedding played) and they've been selling off memorabilia from the walls and liquor supply is being run down.

weird and pointless correction but I think Aggie's was Houston and Macdougal

nabisco is, um, correct

Who else remembers that after the restaurant closed Aggie was a bartender at Walker’s.

And a pointless reminder that the restaurant on the corner of Houston and Sullivan back in those days was Il Bocconcino, discussed upthread.

I also posted upthread about the tapas bar Bar Carrera, which used to be on Macdougal and Houston until it became a Bar Veloce.

Were Aggie's and Nellie's and Bar Carrera and Bar Veloce all the same space?

...and then there was El Paso Spanish-Mexican on that same block, don't know if it's been discussed here

I used to live on Sullivan, and think often of the types of restaurants that just got stomped out of the area in the early 00s and definitely now feel like a kind of departed 90s city -- mostly Gus's (the Greek place) and a place on with locations on Sullivan and somewhere in the east village called ... Mama's, maybe? Non-great comfort food, but in this casual-nice take-out range that used to be everywhere and blinked out rapidly. And then there was Esperanto on Macdougal, which was like the last 90s-style coffeehouse to limp its way a good distance into the 21st century

xpost and yes, El Paso was FANTASTIC just for the sheer archaic vibe

Were Aggie's and Nellie's and Bar Carrera and Bar Veloce all the same space?

Seems to be a pizzeria now, Song’E Napule

Unless the pizzeria and Bar Veloce share the same address

They do —- adjacent spaces. (Actually Song e Napule now has two storefronts on that same block)

not weird mostly, but appropriate for here:

https://www.grubstreet.com/article/best-nyc-restaurants-social-history-new-york.html

Perfectly apropos, thanks!

Still feel very lucky i can say i ate at florent

Ha yeah

Had no idea Lavagna was still in business. "Named after the Italian word for lasagna," according to that piece. I hope that's a joke.

A long time East Villager told me that the only restaurants in that neighborhood worth a damn are Lucien, Emilio's Ballato (technically in Nolita), and Miss Lily's. I don't know Jamaican, so I can't vouch for the latter, but Lucien and Ballato are the ones I gravitate to when I'm in the area and get my full endorsement.

Sorry, that Lavagna quote was from a different piece, not the Grub Street one linked above

Miss lily’s bangs but it is totally a scene. Ur better off going to crown heights or PLG if u actually want to eat

I had a weird food flashback recently to a Chinese spot on La Guardia Place that I loved for their noodle soups. Think it was called No. 1 Son (yikes)?

Re: Aggie's -- yeah I loved it as well. Mentioned it earlier in the thread.

Lucien the

(sorry - hit Return too soon)

Lucien the only E Village place I care to visit whenever back in NYC and if there's a hankering. O

I worked across from Florent for a few years and that was our lunch spot, then pre club spot in the early 00's. Spent the night of the blackout sitting out front with Florent plying everyone with free drinks and food ("It's going to spoil!"). Will never happen again.

Geez I should reread my previous posts in this thread. Posted just about the same thing re: Florent - only with added unnecessary information - eight years ago. Old much?

Ha, I remembered your previous post. But it's okay, who reads old posts these days anyway?

Eight years a decent enough interval between reposts.

Repost realization is a badge of honor

Ha, yes exactly that!

Also, if you had posted a substantially altered version of the same story that would actually have been somewhat disconcerting, but otherwise it's fine.