Olvier Zahm In 2009 Lindsay Lohan, looking somewhat stressed, showed up at Lit Lounge.

“The new Lit.” The expression has been used countless times to describe a club that might just be as cool as Lit when it opened a decade ago. Many of the venues that have vied for “new Lit” status have come and gone, but the original gallery/bar/club hybrid, improbably, is still going strong on Second Avenue. It’s still the best place to splash your beer all over the place while dancing to Britpop and punk at 3 a.m. It’s had its slumps, to be sure, but these days Lit is enjoying what can only be called a flare-up.

You might say Lit has had three lives. Its first golden age lasted for a few years after it opened in February of 2002. Then things slowed down around 2006 when the cool crowd moved on to the newly opened Beatrice Inn. But when that club was shut down in 2009, some of its DJs moved over to Lit, bringing a new generation with them.

The First Golden Age 2002-2004
Dave Murphy used to run around downtown and now, at the age of 36, owns Towne Deli in Summit, New Jersey. “Mondays were the big night in town,” he recalled. Lit was always the last stop after you made the scene at Max Fish, the Lower East Side’s perennial art bar, and Pianos, another cool newcomer.

Adrian Fussell Big Ups performing at Lit Lounge last year.

“Bjork was at the Monday Pianos party one night, in some furry outfit, just sitting at the bar looking like a giant mouse,” said Mr. Murphy. “This was right after we’d seen somebody get shot in the foot outside Lotus. D.J. Clue laughed at the guy, who was bleeding from one foot and hopping on the other. That night ended in the cave at Lit.” Mr. Murphy recalled watching a member of a well known band from San Francisco snorting cocaine off of one of the couches in the cavern-like basement.

At the time, two local music scenes were converging and about to go national: dance pop and retro rock.

Electro-clash, a punk-techno hybrid that drew inspiration from Germany, was at its peak. Fischerspooner’s single “Emerge” was played at clubs as often as Rihanna’s “We Found Love” is today. James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem was DJing at Meatpacking District lounge APT, honing the DFA sound that sprung to life in 2003 with The Rapture’s ubiquitous single “House of Jealous Lovers.”

Lit was essential in helping this music find an audience. It was also one of the first clubs to embrace Euro DJs like Soulwax a.k.a. 2 Many DJs, and Erol Alken, who were inventing the mash-up, where the vocals of one song are played over the music of another song.
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Suzanne Rozdeba Looks like there is still some work to do before the Gin Palace can open.

Out with the Iberian, in with the Victorian.

Gin Palace, the Victorian-themed bar replacing El Cobre on East Sixth Street, is opening by the end of April, co-owner Ravi DeRossi, told The Local this morning.

The new bar, which has a fancy mural in the works on the ceiling, will not have the same air of exclusivity as Mr. DeRossi’s other popular establishment, Death and Company.

“The original gin palaces in England in the 1800s were a response to a failing economy, where people would go to get wasted and escape disease and the plague. It’s not as bad right now, but it’s a pretty weak economy,” said Mr. DeRossi, who also owns nearby The Bourgeois Pig. “This will be a spinoff of those old Victorian dive bars, and no pretension. If the space fits you in, you get in.”
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Noah Fecks The neighborhood’s most controversial burger — at least for today.

Here’s a pair of quick follow-ups to stories we posted yesterday: Josh “Mr. Cutlets” Ozersky’s tough review of the bagel burger at Tompkins Square Bagels resulted in an equally tough response from the shop’s owner, who said the burger was nothing more than a lark.

“I probably put more thought into what color chalk to use on the special board than to that burger,” wrote owner Christopher Pugliese. “The fact that you actually found this whole thing interesting enough to come, take pictures of the burger, and dedicate a headline to it had all of us laughing our [faces] off.” Check out the story to chime in on this delicious controversy.
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Noah Fecks The bagel burger at Tompkins Square Bagels did not get a warm reception from our local expert.

When we got wind of the bagel burger at Tompkins Square Bagels, we knew just the person to try it. So we called Josh “Mr. Cutlets” Ozersky, the East Villager who wrote “The Hamburger: A History.” Would the bagel burger replace the one at Veselka as his favorite? Or would it be too sacrilegious for a burger purist?

The Bagel Burger at Tompkins Square Bagels has the distinction of combining the worst hamburger in the East Village with one of the most disappointing bagels; but that’s not why I hate it so much. At first, it struck me that the clownishly oversized bagels, as puffy and bloated as parade floats, would actually serve a burger well.

A traditional bagel, which is what I had hoped for, would have been far too dense and chewy for any form of ground beef: a single bite would have sent the meat squishing out to the sides, or swallowed up all its juices entirely.

But one of these augmented, airy confections might be OK. And so they might have been, had not the place chosen to cheap out and serve a gray, pasty puck of meat that woudn’t look out of place in a convenience store refrigerator. Thin as a cat’s ear, without even a hint of taste or moisture, this thing would have been overwhelmed by a slice of wonder bread.
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The Local is following progress at the soon-to-open NoHo outpost of Mile End with an eager appetite. Today we spotted a sign noting that the Montreal smoked meat Mecca is hiring cooks and servers. A co-owner of the restaurant, Noah Bernamoff, recently told Grub Street that he was hoping to open this month. One thing is for certain: Katz’s will be facing some of its stiffest competition since the days of the Second Avenue Deli once Mile End does open.

Add Max Brennan to the long list of East Village business owners who have opened outposts in Williamsburg. Gothamist reports that Mr. Brennan, an owner of Lit Lounge, will open a new “swinging 60s-type jazz club” called The Flat on the other side of the East River later this month. Mr. Brennan, whose fellow Lit-owners celebrated the bar’s 10-year anniversary last week, will join familiar East Village eateries like Max, Crif Dogs, Mama’s and Cafe Mogador that have followed the L train east.

Daniel Maurer

Life Cafe’s bar was still standing last week when The Local reported that one of the shuttered cafe’s two landlords had given up trying to come to terms with the other. If the lingering fixture gave you hope that there might be an eleventh-hour rapprochement in time for outdoor brunching season (which, apparently, is already upon us), you can set it aside.

A peek into the space last night revealed that although the summer specials are still pitifully up on the chalkboard, the wooden bar decorated with covers of Life magazine has now been dismantled. Rentheads, if you’re looking for souvenirs, this might be the time to keep your eye on the sidewalk.

Oh, and speaking of brunch, Grub Street reports that the Beagle is now serving it. Pancakes with foie-gras maple syrup, anyone?

Suzanne Rozdeba

As one of Benjamin Shaoul’s buildings loses a tenant, another one is gaining one: Bea’s Café, a new coffee shop, aims to open next month in a building that has brought criticism to the ubiquitous developer.

A sign in the window of 514 East Sixth Street touts Bea’s as “an espresso bar and more.” Read more…

Suzanne Rozdeba

Since opening in December, Tompkins Square Bagels has unleashed its share of headline grabbers: French toast bagels! Sashimi-grade tuna bagels with wasabi cream cheese! Oh, and square bagels are said to be in the works (don’t tell David Cross), as is a deal with Doughnut Plant. But this. This. That’s right: a bagel burger.

It’s not the city’s first – RUB in Chelsea has offered one – but if nothing else, it single-handedly one-ups the entire menu of stunt burgers a couple of doors over at Bad Burger. Our mission is two-fold: to photograph this beast, and to eat it. Please stay tuned.

On Friday, Second Avenue lounge Lit celebrated its ten years as a gathering place and showcase for downtown’s musicians, artists, D.J.s, and plain ol’ cool kids. The Local managed to squeeze a video camera into the crowded house and spoke to owners Erik Foss and David Schwartz, along with Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (one of the night’s many star D.J.s) and Alli Pheteplace and Ryan Macdonald of the Bootblacks, who performed downstairs. Stay tuned this week as we look back on ten years of bands (everyone from Panthers to Japanther), art shows, and bathroom hijinks, and feel free to share your own Lit stories (if you can remember them?) in the comments.

Amalie R. Rothschild Breakfast at Ratner’s

We’ve now heard more about those Ratner’s buttons being sold on Craigslist. The vendor, who mysteriously didn’t want to give a name and referred to himself only as the Flea Market King (he also sells the buttons at the flea market at Avenue A and 11th Street on weekends), said that he acquired 40 of the buttons a year and a half ago while he was cleaning out the estate of an electrician who did work at the restaurant – though it’s uncertain whether it was the Ratner’s on Delancey Street or the one on Second Avenue.

Selling for $20 each, the buttons have dwindled to about a dozen: 10 of them went to a Long Island restaurateur who was planning a Ratner’s theme party and turned them into cufflinks.

The Flea Market King, who grew up on the Lower East Side, said he doesn’t hear many stories about Ratner’s from his customers. In fact, he’s usually the one sharing memories. He was a customer at the Delancey Street location (he also worked as a bag boy at the Lion Supermarket near the Second Avenue location) and still lives in the neighborhood, as do the now-elderly children of some of the Ratner’s bakers. Read more…

Noah Fecks The porchetta sandwich at Il Buco Alimentari & Vineria. Click on the image for a super close-up.

When chef Sarah Jenkins opened Porchetta in a tiny East Seventh Street storefront in 2008, the general reaction was: great sandwich, but wow – $9? Porchetta’s signature dish – that rolled, herbed pork roast served on ciabatta that has been called one of the ten best things to eat in New York City – will now set you back $10 plus tax. But it hardly seems expensive any more.

Four months ago, Il Buco (where Ms. Jenkins was once chef) opened an offshoot Alimentari & Vineria, and it’s doing insane business on Great Jones Street thanks to an adulatory New York Times review last week. On the lunch menu is a porchetta sandwich that costs no less than $16 plus tax. And yet it’s regularly selling out. Read more…