Frying Pan Secure for Next Five Years; Whole Foods Selling Flat Beer on the LES?Chelsea: The Frying Pan has signed a five-year lease that will begin next May. [Chelsea Now via Eater]
Clinton Hill: Get your Oktoberfest on with a beer, cider, and sausage fest at 55 Lexington Avenue on September 29. [A Brooklyn Life]
East Harlem: Italian Americans are still mourning the August closure of Morrone & Sons bakery on East 116th Street. Especially the 72-year-old matron who opened the shop in 1956. [NYT]
Fort Greene: Crisp artichokes make a great burger topping at 67, even when the beef is greasy and overcooked. [Eat for Victory/VV]
Jackson Heights: Jackson Diner and Rajbhog Sweets are among some 85 restaurants participating in Queens Restaurant Week running September 17 to 20 and 24 to 27. [About.com]
Lower East Side: Whole Foods should top off beer-container refills with CO2 if they care about customers getting home to find flat beer. [Eat]
Park Slope: Frank Bruni was inundated with responses to his feature on handicapped-accessible restaurants, including one about his “beloved Franny’s” who wouldn’t slice “a pizza for someone who had just undergone neurosurgery on her (writing) hand because ‘the chef doesn’t do that.’” [Diner’s Journal/NYT]
Soho: Barcelona’s artisanal-candy chain Papabubble has settled on a U.S. location at 380 Broome Street and an opening date of October 18. [Papabubble via Down by the Hipster]
NewsFeed
City’s Favorite Pleasure Craft Won’t Reopen Until Next YearA “Frying Pan Update” posted by Hudson River Park at the booze boat’s new home, Pier 66a, might be giving Pan fans hope that it will reopen this summer, since it informs readers that owner Steve Krevy has finally managed to sign a lease with the Hudson River Park Trust, despite earlier kinks. “We are hopeful that the barge and café will be available shortly,” reads the posting, “as soon as the necessary City approvals are received.” (The Department of Buildings has yet to grant a public assembly permit.) Unfortunately, “shortly” doesn’t mean anytime this summer: Krevy’s wife, Angela, says that although they’ve secured a liquor license, they don’t plan to reopen until next May. In the meantime, if you’re looking for a floating nightclub of similar caliber, you’ll have to go to the Batofar — in Paris.
Earlier: The Frying Pan Still Adrift in a Sea of Red Tape
City Sinks Beloved Party Vessel; New Location in the Works
NewsFeed
The Frying Pan Still Adrift in a Sea of Red Tape
Last winter we reported that the Frying Pan had lost its lease and was moving three blocks uptown. The little party boat that could has indeed made the move to Pier 66 at 26th Street, and though at one point it was set to open June 1, a call to Angela Krevy, wife of owner Steve, reveals that lease negotiations with the Hudson River Park Trust are taking longer than expected. “You can’t fight City Hall,” Krevy quipped, “And you can’t speed it up, either.” But is this more than simply a matter of red tape?
Neighborhood Watch
Tribeca’s 66 Turning Japanese in MayBedford-Stuyvesant: The list of what to drink at Thursday’s Wine & Cocktail Tasting fund-raiser includes Cockspur Rum and Beam Wines. [Bed-Stuy Gateway]
Chelsea: The Frying Pan, the vessel recovered from the bottom of the ocean and turned into a bar in the eighties, has moved over a couple of piers and requires some work. [NewYorkology]
Chinatown: Highgate Holdings will transform the Baxter Street Holiday Inn into a boutique hotel with a “hip” restaurant possibly from Tao’s Marc Packer or Richard Wolf of Stanton Social. [NYP]
East Village: The new Cooper Square hotel may get an outlet of L.A.’s Table 8. [Down by the Hipster]
Harlem: Arlene Weston’s Southern-Jamaican Maroon’s is expanding uptown to West 145th Street and may be open by June. [Uptown Flavor]
Tribeca: 66 will be turning Japanese in May. [Eater]
Williamsburg: The Brooklyn Kitchen will host a cupcake cook-off tomorrow at 6:30 p.m.; you may get handouts if bakers decide to bring more than the required six contenders. [Gothamist]
Back of the House
City Sinks Beloved Party Vessel; New Location in the WorksFor once, rumors of the Frying Pan’s demise aren’t greatly exaggerated: The venue-cafe’s lease on Pier 63 has expired along with Basketball City’s. (The city plans to build a new section of Hudson River Park where the railroad barge anchoring the Pan now floats.) Angela Krevy, wife of Steve, the owner, says not to worry: Pending recently commenced negotiations, the John J. Harvey fireboat, the Frying Pan, the kayak storage shed, and the recently opened Cafe du Soleil will tie up at Pier 66A, an old float bridge, and the Pan will serve food at another newly installed section of the park as early as next spring. Question is, will it remain a center of summertime decadence, given the crackdown on West Chelsea nightlife and the fact that it will have to apply for a new liquor license? If nothing else, the operating hours will be abbreviated: The park closes at 1 a.m. “A lot of people want it to open up as the same type of facility,” Krevy says. “We’re hoping that will happen.” —Daniel Maurer
