A regular reader sent me this photo. During a road trip through Wyoming, he found the onetime SoHo institution, the Moondance Diner, in its new setting. Quite a picture, isn't it, in its stark solitude. Hate to say it, but it looks more at home there than it ever did on Sixth Avenue. It must seem like a veritable oasis to the lonely travelers who find it.
How does a restaurant look like its been around since the Kennedy administration and be in operation only five years? I don't know, but La Mancha on Atlantic Avenue has managed the trick. Before I visited the place last week, I would have sworn on a pack of bibles that it was the oldest restaurant on the block. Turned out, it's only the name that's a half-century old.
Who Goes There? La Mancha
I admit up front, La Mancha doesn't really belong in this series. Under its new ownership, it is all of five years old—hardly a bedrock institution. My confusion on the joint's longevity derives from the fact that, prior to La Mancha's arrival on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, is was another, almost identical Spanish restaurant called Meson Flamenco, where you could catch some actual Flamenco dancing action on the weekends. What's more, Meson Flamenco's owner, Pepe Canto, snatched its chef from another Atlantic Avenue Spanish place, ALSO called La Mancha, which held down the block for a full 50 years, before closing in 1994.
Given this tangled history, one could arguably award La Mancha a WWII-era pedigree. Moreover, while some restaurants become old over the years, others are born old. La Mancha was born old. It looks and acts like it's been around forever, with the owner and the eccentric patrons showing plenty of sass and personality. Certainly the trappings—standard white tablecloths, drawings of Don Quixote—don't speak of the latest trends in 21st-century dining decor. And the bathrooms are veterans, no mistake.
Owner Jose presides happily over a scattering of regulars, who seem to prefer the long bar near the door over the quieted tables in back. Big, energetic and talkative, he functions as waiter, bartender, chef and raconteur, expounding in a loud, husky voice on how you've got to put saffron in your gazpacho, and how nothing grown in America (tomatoes, eggs) tastes like anything. For one man, who was celebrating his birthday, he poured way too many vodka and tonics, and a chilled shot of Red Stagg ("bourbon for girls"), even though the birthday boy was already nearly sleeping on the bar. And he whipped up a pitcher a sangria for the two happy, old couples in back faster than you can say Pancho Villa.
Dominating the Atlantic Avenue side of the bar was a large, gray old lady of so crusty and unguarded a manner she effortlessly reminded one of the avenue's bygone, sailor-strewn, maritime character. "A man needs a pick," she observed, as one patron enviously eyed her well-used toothpick. She lent a pen to another with the comment "It's clean." "What time of year is it in Australia," she inquired of a regular from Down Under who had been already asked that question a few too many times. "September," was his tart replied.
The food at La Mancha is what you'd expect (Paella, seafood, steak, flan). It's fairly expensive. But the dishes are ample and actually very good, better than I've received at many other better-known Spanish restaurants. True, I didn't get the chicken dish I asked for, but I liked the one that came anyway.
—Brooks of Sheffield
He's got an apron, a tray, and a little box of take out, so he can eat some of himself when he gets home.
Part of the Nathan's sign in Coney Island.
It was the Coney Island summer without Totonno's.
When we didn't hear anything from the pizzeria by Aug. 31, which suffered a fire in March, and has promised to reopen every month since then, we knew something was up.
Sure enough, Slice reports that owner-pizzaman Lawrence Ciminieri says it'll be late September or early October before the place opens its doors again.
Why the delay? After the fire, Ciminieri said, his family had two choices: rebuild from scratch or salvage what was there. The initial reports from the architect Ciminieri consulted with indicated that the building was sound enough to salvage, but once crews started renovation, city inspectors found more damage than expected. It turns out that the building needs to be shored up to support the weight of the oven and the coal used to fire it.
"It would have been easier to just knock the place down and start over," Ciminieri said, "but we're already in the middle of this [renovation] and just have to finish now."
Just when old New York businesses thought they had enough wolves at the door trying to stop them dead, from rising rents to rampant overdevelopment to the continuing recession, another threat to their livelihood arises: the MTA's expansion plans.
Lost City reported earlier this week that the half-century old Italian restaurant Giambelli, on E. 50th Street, has shuttered, the victim of an eminent domain land grab by the MTA. A story in today's AMNY fills in some of the back story. Several Manhattan businesses, including Giambelli, are being displaced in order to make way for the new Long Island Rail Road connection to Grand Central Terminal. A ventilation plant will rise where Giambelli was. A similar fate awaits 47 residential tenants uptown, where the Second Avenue Subway is sending 47 residential tenants packing.
Giambelli’s neighbor, The Mid-Town Wine & Liquor Shop, AMNY reports, is preparing to close in a few months, after a 54-year run.
For the LIRR connection, the MTA will knock down five properties on East 49th and 50th streets, including two dating to 1910.
Nice bit of Art Deco detail in downtown Louisville.
There are many greasy spoons in the city (though not as many as I'd like), and sometimes it's just the little touch of weirdness that sets one apart from the pack. With the 3 Decker Restaurant, in Greenpoint, it's the name and their odd devotion to the club sandwich. You can order a great many different sandwiches here in the club format—that is, two sets of filling separated by a third slice of bread placed halfway between the bottom and top slices. Strange. And wonderful. It's a gimmick. A simple one, but a good one.
Then, there's that name. Generally, if club sandwiches are called by another name, it's a "double-decker." The sandwich has three slices of bread, yes, but two "decks." If someone did decide to call it by the number of bread slices, they would say "triple-decker." But this diner is called the "3 decker," which is totally strange, in its mild way. And that's what makes the name great.
The place is celebrating 30 years in business just now, so go in and say hi. And have yourself a three-decker tuna salad and sliced egg sandwich.
Found this inside St. Bartholomew's on Fifth Avenue. "A perfect and an upright man. And one who feared God." If he was perfect, why did he fear God? And how could a man who feared God have the gaul to call himself perfect?
Who was this Wood? Well, according to a few small scraps I found, a member of high New York society, important enough to give parties that were mentioned in the papers, and to have his debutante daughter's wedding (three years after his death) covered in great detail in the New York Times.
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