Samantha Balaban Sam Saleh, John Seymour, and chef

He already owns a restaurant on East Eighth Street in Manhattan; now John Seymour is opening a spot at North Eighth Street in Brooklyn.

Next Tuesday, Mr. Seymour will open Sweet Chick, named for the restaurant’s signature dish: fried chicken and your choice of bacon and cheddar, or rosemary and mushroom waffles. (See the dinner, dessert and cocktail menus below.)

Mr. Seymour opened Pop’s of Brooklyn a year ago, on East Eighth Street, between Greene Street and University Place. He met his partner in Sweet Chick, Sam Saleh, after Mr. Saleh opened Organic Planet around the corner from the original Pop’s, in Williamsburg. (Mr. Saleh also owns Swallow Coffee).

Born and bred in Brooklyn, Mr. Seymour and Mr. Saleh say they are committed to friendly, family-run businesses, especially as chain pharmacies and banks take over retail space in the East Village and Williamsburg. “This neighborhood is cool,” said Mr. Saleh. “But it’s about to be ruined by franchises.” Read more…

Roni Jacobson

Earlier this week, Patagonia Surf was cleared for a permit to install a 19-square-foot sign displaying its trademark fish-and-trident logo on the former home of CBGB Gallery.

Will it be as iconic as the CBs awning, or will it be a fish out of water?

We went fishing for information and a representative for the surfwear brand told us the store’s opening at 313 Bowery had been delayed due to Hurricane Sandy and various construction issues. No opening date was available.

Though the construction permit application calls for an illuminated sign and puts the cost of installation at $3,750, this won’t be a flashy fish: the project’s architect says the sign will be made of oxidized steel and backlit, so as to emit a warm glow.

Chloe Sevigny just launched a clothing line inspired by Occupy Wall Street, and she isn’t the only East Villager taking fashion cues from the protest movement. On Saturday, as an antidote to Fashion Week, the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space held a Direct Action Fashion Show aimed at celebrating “how activists use costumes, puppets, and props to draw awareness to various environmental, social, and political issues and create positive, sustainable change.” Making appearances were Rude Mechanical Orchestra, Earth Celebrations, Time’s Up!, and others. Check out Konstantin Sergeyev’s photos, below, to see what went down.
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Natalie Rinn Keegan building frames.

While Sandy’s unforgiving surge forced dozens of Chelsea gallerists into frenzied damage control, Brooklyn-based artist Ray Smith, whose own Gowanus studio held five feet of water, made the best of a bad situation.

Tonight, a series of ten ink-on-rice paper drawings formed by Mr. Smith, his assistants and a loose network of around fifteen fellow artists and friends will go on display at Parade Ground gallery on the Lower East Side. Most of the work was exposed to Sandy.

“To begin with, the idea was already sort of damaged,” said Mr. Smith of the paintings, which evolved thanks to a process of “organic chaos.”

From a distance, the bursts of images and text on white backgrounds resemble the jumbled composition of Picasso’s “Guernica.” But up close, the viewer sees something different: the artists’ reactions to social and political news fodder, and musings on their daily lives over the course of two years. Succinct insights on Occupy Wall Street are pitted against lewd fart jokes and reflections on a breakup. Read more…

Samantha Balaban

Three months after Sandy struck, The Sunburnt Cow still hasn’t restarted its dinner service, and is offering only weekend brunch. Its manager, Matilda Boland, told The Local she hopes the Australian spot will be fully operational “by the time it’s warm out.”

While most of its neighbors on Avenue C are back up to full capacity, the Cow was forced to shut its doors for a month when Con Edison turned off its gas because of safety concerns, said Ms. Boland. Then it had to rewire its building, which is over 100 years old. It’s still in the process of replacing damaged equipment.

Meanwhile, state senator Daniel Squadron has urged the quick passage of the NYC Hurricane Sandy Assessment Act, a bill initiated by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. The act, if passed, would provide property tax reduction to home and business owners commensurate to the damage done during Sandy.

“Around our city, New Yorkers are still struggling to rebuild their homes and businesses in the wake of Sandy’s catastrophic damage,” said Senator Squadron in a press release. “By providing tax relief to New Yorkers whose property was severely impacted by Sandy, our bill will allow them — and our city — to rebuild and again thrive.”

Are you still struggling after Sandy? Tell us about it.

Chester Higgins, Jr./New York Times Shamus Jones.

As you can tell by peeking at the pickle menu at East Village newcomer Boulton & Watt, pickles are popular. So popular that one of the city’s most popular pickle producers might just be opening an eatery of its own.

Shamus Jones, who co-founded Brooklyn Brine in 2009, revealed to The Local that the wholesaler will open a brick-and-mortal location in north Brooklyn.

A source told The Local that the pickler was working with Dogfish Head, the Delaware brewery that had a hand in its popular Hop-Pickle, to open a spot on Bedford Avenue. Mr. Jones wouldn’t comment on the location or the particulars of the operation because he wanted to coordinate an official announcement with the beer company, but he did confirm that the report of a collaboration was true. “It’s a brick and mortar and it’s Dogfish and Brooklyn Brine,” he said.

The project won’t be a retail shop along the lines of the one that opened in the producer’s Gowanus factory last year. “It isn’t going to be a factory and isn’t going to be a store,” said Mr. Jones.

And Dogfish Head won’t be a full partner, he added. “They don’t have a vested equity or share or whatnot, but I felt so strongly about our initial collaboration and out of respect wanted to incorporate them.”

You can get a taste of the Brooklyn Brine-Dogfish Head magic at Eataly’s rooftop beer garden on Wednesday, assuming you have a ticket. Brooklyn Brine pickles will be served at a sold-out lunch featuring Dogfish Head and Sierra Nevada beers.

Daniel Maurer

Thought after-hours clubs were taking a dirt nap? Thought illegal speakeasies were just for those crazy kids over in Brooklyn? Think again. On the outskirts of the East Village, the after-hours tradition is still going strong.

We don’t want to spoil anyone’s fun here (we’ve been accused of that in the past), so we’ll keep this vague. But rest assured there’s a place where, at 5 a.m., you can bang on the door and a bouncer will appear. He’ll tell you to step inside, charge you $10, and direct you down the stairs into a narrow, brick-walled lair where DJs pump out house and techno. In a crowd several dozen strong, you’ll see couples making out, boys smoking e-cigarettes (and regular cigarettes), and girls ducking into the bathroom two at a time. But mostly people are dancing and drinking into the wee hours.

How wee? Well, the bartender who was serving drinks at 5:30 a.m. Saturday said the party goes till 6 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays. (That bartender didn’t know he was talking to a reporter.)

When the bouncer let us out by directing us up a dingy stairwell and through a metal gate (the bar’s service entrance), he said, “Have a good night, and do not stand by that door.” The door is not inconspicuously located, you see: when we stepped out onto the strangely quiet streets of the East Village (even South Brooklyn Pizza and Stromboli were closed), a police car was right there at the intersection.

This is no fly-by-night operation: we first caught wind of the place last spring and have heard about it from two people since then. Feel free to guess the location. We won’t confirm or deny.

Pat Ivers and Emily Armstrong continue sorting through their archives of punk-era concert footage as it’s digitized for the Downtown Collection at N.Y.U.’s Fales Library.

L.P. cover.

Looking back at the cover of the L.P. that The Offs released in 1984, we didn’t remember that Jean-Michel Basquiat had designed it. But the image of their lead singer, Don Vinyl, face down, his bicep glistening with the tattoo of a .45 pistol — that we had not forgotten.

We recall Don coming to our apartment the day he got the ink, his arm still red and a little bloody. “Paul Simonon is getting the same one!” he told us, excitedly. It was the summer of 1981 and everyone in the East Village was getting tats, even The Clash. Bob Roberts, The Offs’ saxophonist — and also a tattooist — had done the work for both.

We met The Offs in 1979, on our first trip to the Mabuhay Gardens in San Francisco. They were hugely popular on the West Coast, bringing a mix of punk, funk and reggae with a political bent that sounded fresh. When they came to New York later that year, we became friends.

Their bassist, Denny DeGorio, often crashed on our couch. He remembers how the band was formed: “Don and I were roommates in this flat on Mission, along with Jello Biafra from the Dead Kennedys and guys from Flipper and The Dils; it was a real punk-rock flop house.” Read more…

Daniel Maurer

Not only is “handmade ice cream” coming to First Avenue and frozen yogurt coming to Second Avenue, but it looks like gelato is bound for 199 Avenue A. The sign for Casa Gusto, near East 12th Street, promises macarons and chocolate as well.

Speaking of forthcoming sweets spots, Wafels and Dinges posted a photo from inside its forthcoming cafe on Avenue B: it seems a new item, galettes, is in the works.

Anthony Pappalardo. Peter Hook signs books.

On Tuesday, the last 30 years of British music collided in the East Village. An appearance by Peter Hook, bassist for Joy Division and New Order, was followed by a performance by Drowners, a new band named after a song by Britpop champs Suede. The Local went to The Strand and then bounced over to Mercury Lounge to experience the British invasion.

Mr. Hook was driven to write “Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division” after he watched several tomes about the band get published. “What annoyed me about all the books was that none of these people knew us,” he said. “I’d see another one and go, ‘Who is this person?’”

Speaking in a croaky Manchester accent, the musician marinated in his ego before a crowd of about 200, often citing himself, and not his co-conspirators, as the main reason for their many successes. Did you know, for instance, that he wrote the melody for Joy Division’s most popular song, “Love Will Tear Us Apart”? Another fun fact: “Blue Monday,” New Order’s most successful track and the best-selling 12” single of all-time, took six months to write, but “Love Will Tear Us Apart” was composed in only three hours.

Mr. Hook, or Hooky as many audience members addressed him, spoke with Sasha Frere-Jones, music critic at The New Yorker, for close to an hour before fielding questions from fans. The audience, nearly all dressed in some shade of black, spanned generations: weathered punk veterans in leather jackets sat next to middle-aged goths and teenage girls. Even Chloe Sevigny came to worship. Read more…

Dana Varinsky Clemente Soto Velez.

Community Board 3 has voted against supporting a beer-and-wine license renewal for The Suffolk, the bar that has been fighting to stay in the lobby of the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Educational Center. Now Drew Figueroa, the bar’s owner, is crying corruption: he says C.B. 3 shouldn’t have let a board member who also happens to be the cultural center’s executive director participate in discussions about the license application.

Jan Hanvik, the CSV center’s executive director, also serves as chair of Community Board 3’s subcommittee on the arts and cultural affairs. During two meetings of C.B. 3’s liquor licensing committee, he strongly opposed Mr. Figueroa’s application and accused The Suffolk of creating a “laundry list” of problems for the city-owned cultural center, including accepting fake IDs from minors, stirring incidents of violence and prompting numerous noise complaints from neighbors.

Mr. Hanvik recused himself when the full board cast a final vote on the matter last week. “But Community Board 3’s integrity was compromised when it allowed Jan Hanvik to carry on as chair of its task force on arts and culture,” Mr. Figueroa said in a phone conversation with The Local. He accused Mr. Hanvik of being behind a series of “fraudulent 311 and 911 calls” involving noise complaints against his bar and performance space “when there were no scheduled events,” a charge previously made by a former security guard who testified for Mr. Figueroa during a December committee hearing.

Mr. Hanvik adamantly denied the allegation in a second committee hearing earlier this month. Susan Stetzer, district manager of Community Board 3, said that ethics complaints like Mr. Figueroa’s are common in liquor license hearings and noted the city’s Conflict of Interest Board addresses those issues.

“This type of issue has come up more than once,” she told The Local in an e-mail. “When there is a conflict of interest, a board member must declare ‘present not voting’ and declare the conflict. However, it is explicitly stated that the board member may participate in discussion.” She added: “All community boards are very educated on this issue as it is a common issue and we know that a [board] member can participate with disclosure.” Read more…

The Village Scandal has been served with an eviction notice demanding it leave its East Seventh Street storefront by Monday. Now the 17-year-old hat shop’s owner, Wendy Barrett, is urging neighbors and supporters to call her landlord, the district attorney’s office, and even the judge.

Ms. Barrett, who has been involved in a complicated legal battle with A.J. Clarke Real Estate since 2004, is making the last-ditch effort “to support elementary justice, and the survival of the Village Scandal Hat Shop, which is now under attack by a criminal conspiracy of a corrupt managing agent,” she wrote in an e-mail to The Local today.

In November, Ms. Barrett’s lawyer, Jonathan Zimet, said the hat shop owner’s landlord claimed she owed close to $130,000 in back rent and real estate taxes. She vigorously disputed the amount, and sued her landlord and management company for $10 million in State Supreme Court. Read more…

Rendering of the bar.

Next month, The Immigrant will go before Community Board 3’s liquor licensing committee to present plans to expand into the space next-door to its current home on East Ninth Street, between First and Second Avenues.

A questionnaire submitted to the committee indicates The Immigrant Tap Room, which is taking over Change of Season’s former space at 341 East Ninth Street, will have 18 seats at four tables, plus an L-shaped front bar accommodating seven more.

In a letter to his block association, Jason Corey, the bar’s owner, says the tap room will likely offer eight draft beers. “The menu will consist of our usual cheese and meat plates, and we are also planning to add a few sandwich plates, as people are sometimes looking for more food than we can offer in the current Immigrant space,” Mr. Corey writes, adding that The Immigrant sources its bread from 9th St. Bakery, its fruit from Commodities Natural Market, and its meats from Russo’s.

If the food and drink menu submitted with the questionnaire is any indicator, the wine and beer bar will serve brews from the East Village’s own Alphabet City Brewery. Check it out below. It’s an early sample menu that’s subject to change, but it’ll give you some idea of what team Immigrant is thinking. Read more…

Daniel Maurer Left to right: Look beauty salon, 111 Convenience, ice cream shop, and bistro.

Daniel Maurer 111 Convenience

That ramen bar isn’t the only newcomer on First Avenue.

The strip will soon boast a couple of new eateries, a salon, and a convenience store.

Actually, the convenience store has already opened: Zahid Mahmood, who spoke with The Local a month ago, opened 111 Convenience Store on Monday. As you can see from our photo, the narrow space that used to house Hetal 111 First has been spiffed up, but the neighborhood’s old guard can rest assured that Mr. Mahmood, a native of Pakistan, is still carrying Polish magazines and newspapers. The coolers aren’t quite full yet: the state still hasn’t given its final blessing for beer and lottery-ticket sales.

Over at 59 First Avenue, Looks, a beauty salon, will open tomorrow, offering threading and waxing from $5 (for chin-hair removal) to $40 (for a back wax). Ear candeling is $30. Bikini waxes, facials, and body massages are also on offer.

Finally, on the block between St. Marks Place and East Ninth Street, a sign indicates that in the summer, “handmade ice cream” will come to the former home of Discount Cleaners, at number 137.

And right next door, in the same building, a bistro is taking over the former home of Tara Thai. A questionnaire submitted to Community Board 3’s liquor license committee, which will consider the new restaurant’s beer-and-wine application next month, indicates that Ivrose Bamba, the owner, plans to offer Mediterranean dishes such as lamb mignon with ratatouille, and salmon carpaccio. Sides will include curry couscous and forbidden rice.

Daniel MaurerVinny Vincenz, next to the incoming 2 Bros.

With a 2 Bros. Pizza set to open right next to it on First Avenue, Vinny Vincenz has dropped the price of its slice to a rock-bottom $1. Since then, business at the pizzeria, which turned ten earlier this month, has been up an estimated 500 percent. But Ari Elalan, the owner, isn’t happy about it.

Earlier today, Mr. Elalan stood behind the counter at Vinny Vincenz while, right next door, workers put the finishing touches on the incoming 2 Bros. He told The Local he wasn’t happy when he discovered that the wildly popular dollar-slice chain would be his neighbor, and he let its owner know about it: “I told him, ‘Don’t you know there’s a pizzeria over here next to you? He said, ‘I didn’t know.’ There’s a big sign outside and you didn’t know?”

Mr. Elalan decided to drop the price of his slice, formerly $2.50, to just $1, without changing the recipe. “I’m using the same size, same sauce, same cheese,” he said. “I’m not making no money on the slice, but listen, I have to compete.” The pizzaiolo, who said he was offering $1.25 slices back in 1987 when he helped run Pizza One in the West Village, believes there’s no comparison between his slice and the one at 2 Bros. After hearing that the chain was moving in, he tried one of the slices at the St. Marks Place original. “I took one bite and I threw it out,” he told The Local. “I said, ‘You know what? I don’t have to worry. If they’re going to use that slice I don’t have to worry.'” Read more…

Molly Socha

Residents of 22 St. Marks Place have been dining out a lot lately. Shortly before Christmas, firefighters responded to a complaint about a gas odor, and the building has been without cooking gas ever since.

What started as an inconvenience (ever try to cook a Christmas feast in a microwave?) has become a genuine irritation.

“People are getting mutinous,” said a tenant who did not want to be named. In fact, some are circulating a petition that they’re threatening to take to the Department of Buildings.

It’s uncertain who, exactly, is responsible for the extended outage. According to a representative of the building’s management company, NBKM Realty, Con Edison turned off the gas because of a leak in one of its ground-floor restaurants.

Mamoun’s briefly closed because of the leak but reopened around Jan. 4. “It was the building’s fault,” said Kareem Ibriham, an employee of the falafel joint. He insisted that the gas for the restaurant is separate from the apartments above, and has been restored.  Read more…

Scott Lynch

Good morning, East Village.

A neighborhood legend has passed: “Butch Morris, who created a distinctive form of large-ensemble music built on collective improvisation that he single-handedly directed and shaped, died on Tuesday in Brooklyn. He was 65.”

On East Sixth Street, “The Congregation Adas Le Israel Anshei Meseritz has signed over the rights to its second floor to East River Partners LLC, as part of a 99-year lease worth approximately $1,225,000, according to documents filed in Manhattan Supreme Court.” [DNA Info]

Following a New York Times article about an American Girl doll that was being lent out to patrons, the Ottendorfer library has received an outpouring of support, including a $1,000 check and five new dolls. [NY Times]
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The Local’s occasional round-up of what’s new and interesting on the art scene.

Ladies. Dina Brodsky and Bonnie De Witt curate a show of images that “tease and blur the lines between innocence and knowing, between the daydreaming of young girls and the certain knowledge of women.” The all-female lineup of artists includes Lynn Albanese, Julie E. Brady, Maya Brodsky, Diana Corvelle, Michelle Doll, Heidi Elbers, Candace Goodrich, Kathleen Hayes, Maria Kreyn, Amber Lia-Kloppel, Susan Seaton, Hilary Schmidt, Melanie Vote, and Mitra Walter. Opening reception Feb. 13, 9 p.m. to midnight at KGB Bar, 85 East Fourth Street, (212) 505-3360. Show at Kraine Gallery in the same building.

Ayse Wilson: Recent Works. Ms. Wilson, a Turkish-American artist who worked as a painting assistant to Jeff Koons, paints cartoonish yet somber images of children against monochromatic backgrounds. Jack Geary Contemporary presents this show at the Site/109 pop-up space at 109 Norfolk Street. Feb. 8 to 24; Wednesday to Sunday, noon to 6 p.m., Mondays and Tuesdays by appointment.

Valentine’s Day Reenactments. During this offshoot of the “Art in Odd Places” festival, artist Rory Golden will ask passersby for romantic stories so that he can use dolls to reenact their tales of love and loss. The resulting vignettes will be filmed and sent out via Facebook and other social media. Premieres in and around Madison Square Park, Feb. 12, 13 and 14, 10 a.m. to noon and 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.
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Taco Town’s population just grew: Choza Taqueria has opened its second location at 124 MacDougal Street, a rep informs. The budding quick-service chain, from Matt Wagman and chef David Albiero of Murray Hill’s popular after-work spot PS450, started with a food kiosk at Municipal Plaza and opened its first storefront location in the Flatiron in 2010.

N.Y.U. students, consider it an alternative to the Chipotle on St. Marks Place? You can see the menu below.
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