For every East Village business that’s opening or closing, dozens are quietly making it. Here’s one of them: Gizmo.

Shira Levine Hossein Amid

The notion of describing sewing accessories as “notions” is a rather antiquated one. But notions, like buttons, snaps, trimmings, seam rippers and collar-stays, are exactly what Hossein Amid has been selling to the East Village’s artists, D.I.Y. designers, and drag queens for 22 years. The trimmings and fabrics at his First Avenue shop, Gizmo, are particularly popular among casual costume designers. “Every year, Halloween is a big, busy time for me,” Mr. Amid told The Local. But how does Gizmo manage to make it the rest of the year?

You must really love to sew.

Repairing this stuff is what I like doing. I have a mechanical background from when I lived in Iran. When we first opened in 1990, my wife did all the sewing, now she doesn’t. My work is helping people find what they need and repairing sewing machines. Read more…

Better get Michael Moore on the phone. City Room reports that a fight is on the horizon between the owners of the Strand Bookstore and its unionized workers, who are likely to reject a new contract that cuts back on benefits. The store’s general manager says that the offer reflects the realities of the ailing book industry, which affects independent stores in particular. The staff counters that a strike might be necessary down the road. “If that’s what we need to do to defend our rights in the long term, well, we’ll see when we cross that bridge,” an employee says.

Lauren Carol Smith The restaurant at 7 St. Marks Place will expand next door.

A worker renovating the below-ground space at 5 St. Marks Place, near Third Avenue, just told The Local that the Thai restaurant next door, Klong, will be moving in. An employee at JKNY Realty, which is listed as the owner in Department of Buildings records, confirmed the expansion. The space was previously occupied by Hottie, which closed in November.

Daniel Maurer

A Japanese restaurant with three locations in Long Island will open in the space that was home to Lan, a neighborhood favorite for a little over a decade. When The Local stopped into Kotobuki at 56 Third Avenue earlier today, the owner politely declined to speak about the restaurant or let us take photos, since he is still staffing up, but said he hoped to quietly open next Thursday.

According to a Website advertising outposts in Babylon, Roslyn, and the original location in Hauppauge, the mini-chain was established in 1987, with an aim to “relentlessly revolutionize the facets of Japanese fare to craft extraordinary delights to satisfy even the most discerning of palates.” Read more…

Michelle Rick

Community Board 3 continues to debate whether it should soften its hardline stance against new beer-and-wine licenses in nightlife-saturated areas. Last night, a task-force meeting pitted residents who don’t want to see C.B. 3 bow to late-night noisemakers against a landlord who said he has been financially stymied by the board’s current policy.

In response to evidence that the State Liquor Authority routinely approves beer-and-wine applications even when C.B. 3 recommends disapproval, the board may start supporting the soft stuff in resolution areas that are currently verboten, so long as the applicant agrees to operate primarily in the daytime and close at midnight or earlier. The new stipulations, the board hopes, will both curtail noise and attract more diverse – and especially daytime – businesses.

Residents who live on streets like St. Marks Place and the avenues of Alphabet City, which devolve into something resembling a carnival on weekend nights, showed up at C.B. 3’s offices on East Fourth Street to voice their concerns about the potential policy shift. Read more…

Daniel Maurer Former home of Jubb’s Longevity.

Community Board 3 has released its April calendar of meetings. Looking at the S.L.A. Licensing committee’s agenda: A company by the name of Downtown Dining LLC, which pursued the 205 Club space on the Lower East Side before Matt Levine took it over, is now going after 5 Avenue A, which happens to be the address of neighborhood fixture Nice Guy Eddie’s (no one picked up when we called the bar to find out whether it may close). The former Mo Pitkins and Aces and Eights space, 34 Avenue A, is back on the calendar, this time with the mysterious Great Life Hospitality Group pursuing wine and beer there. Read more…

Shira Levine

For every East Village business that’s opening or closing, dozens are quietly making it. Here’s one of them: Dual Specialty Store.

In 1989, Abdul Patwary opened Dual Specialty Store to serve local Bengalis. That community has dwindled and the spice bazaar and Indian goods store – located a few steps below street level at 91 First Avenue, around the corner from Curry Row – suffered a fire in 2005. But Mr. Patwary, along with the family members who help him run the store, got things rolling again, and Dual Specialty is thriving seven years later. We asked the shopkeeper, who doubles as a doctor to some, how he’s managed to make it this long.

How has your customer base changed over the years?

There was a big Bengali community that lived here, and we, my family, started this business first to bring our products to them. We wanted to bring them things they wanted and needed from back home. Then the Bengali community started to leave this area, so we changed the mood of the business. We could see that we had to appeal to a larger, vast community here in the East Village. Our customers were people who care about their health and want to use natural, high-quality products to treat themselves better. Read more…

At last night’s full board meeting, Community Board 3 upheld its liquor licensing committee’s vote to recommend that the State Liquor Authority deny a full liquor license at 200 Avenue A, the old Superdive spot, as well as at Spanish newcomer Bikinis unless the latter operates as a full service restaurant during the day and nighttime hours are curbed to midnight. There was, however, one reversal: earlier this month, the subcommittee voted against a beer and wine license at Sahara Citi, a falafel joint at 137 East 13th Street, under the mistaken impression that it stood on “grandfathered” non-compliant commercial property. Last night, it was discovered that the address was in fact zoned commercial and the decision was overturned.

Suzanne Rozdeba Joe Barbosa.

Rockit Scientist records will close at the end of April, and sidewalk vinyl vendor Joe Barbosa will remain in his normal spot in front of the store until the landlord finds a new tenant.

Mr. Barbosa told The Local that the landlord gave Rockit Scientist Records, which was expected to close at the end of February, an extension on its lease.

“I’m going to hang here until they rent the place out,” said Mr. Barbosa, who has subleased the space in front of the store for several years. He added he was already thinking of a new spot to sell his records. “Hopefully I’ll be able to find something on this block. Haven’t seen anything as of yet, though.”

Hey, there’s always the minivan option…

Daniel Maurer Andy Koszewski at the cafe’s front counter.

The Bowery Poetry Club’s front café, which went dark after Bowery Beef closed last summer, is once again brewing coffee, this time under the eye of a former manager at Think Coffee’s Mercer Street location (not the Bowery location just a block away – that would be awkward).

Andy Koszewski, the café’s new operator, opened shop earlier today, and is pouring drip coffee ($2.50, refills $1.50) from Anodyne Coffee Roasting Co., a stylish small-batch roaster from his hometown of Milwaukee, Wis. Once the La Marzocco machine is back from the repair shop later this week, he’ll be pulling espresso ($2.50) for cappuccinos ($3.75), mochas ($4.25) and the like. Also on offer: Chai lattes, hot chocolate, and eventually croissants and quiches from Ceci Cela Patisserie, salads from Choice Greens, and cookies from Salt of the Earth Bakery. Read more…

Stephen Rex Brown

Go enjoy the lovely weather in International Bar’s backyard and you’ll be surprised to find a wooden fence splitting it in half. The divider is the result of a court battle roughly a year ago that pitted the owners of the bar against the neighboring German sausage and beer joint.

A co-owner of International Bar, Shawn Dahl, said that the landlord of both businesses, Steven Croman, had rented the whole backyard to International when it opened after its renovation, and subsequently rented half of it to Wechsler’s when it opened in 2009.

“When Wechsler’s came along it turned out that the landlord had rented them the backyard as well,” Ms. Dahl said, later adding, “I blame the landlord.” Read more…

Daniel Maurer

It may be too late to buy the CBGB name, but you can now snag Life Cafe’s. A few weeks after the failure of negotiations to bring the legendary corner spot back from the brink, its trademark is now up for grabs.

A Craigslist posting offers up the right to use the name of the cafe – “immortalized in the Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway musical ‘Rent’” – for restaurants, t-shirts, cups, and marketing material.

To sweeten the deal, the ad says the “current East Village liquor license may be available” and offers up the services of John Sunderland, the artist responsible for much of Life’s branding and its fanciful chalkboard menus.

Hey, if you want to own a piece of East Village restaurant history, it’s either this or those Ratner’s buttons.

Daniel Maurer 239 East 14th Street in background.

It’s official: 7-Eleven is moving in next to the IHOP on 14th Street. A few weeks ago, Larry Guttman, the landlord of 239 East 14th Street told The Local that multiple parties were vying for the building’s storefront. Today, he confirmed that he had signed a lease with the corporate convenience store.

Mr. Guttman said he went with the chain because it seemed “more positive for the area” than the adult establishment before it (Exquisite DVD & Video closed when its lease expired) and preferable to yet another watering hole. “There are so many bars moving into the area that it might just get overwhelmed with that,” he said over the phone today.

“I think 7-Eleven will be a good tenant,” he said, explaining that a 24-hour store would make the block safer by increasing nighttime foot traffic. “The idea of a 7-Eleven which doesn’t issue exhaust or noise – it could be a positive,” he said. Read more…

Daniel Maurer

Earlier this morning, a new neon sign was going up over Artichoke Pizza. Now the hungry hordes can spot the 14th Street hole-in-the-wall from the avenues! (As if the line wasn’t long enough?) We’ll check back later to see the signage in all of its illuminated glory.

Mark your calendars, barflies: On Sunday, Lucyna Mickievicius, the owner of Lucy’s, will close shop for two and a half weeks to visit her son in Poland. “He’s very sick and I’m going to spend some time with him,” she told The Local. “I’ll be there for Easter with my family, and will come back April 12 or 13. It’ll be nice to spend Easter in Poland.” Aww, but will she miss us? “I’ll miss everyone at the bar,” she said. “I always do.”

For every East Village business that’s opening or closing, dozens are quietly — or not so quietly — making it. Here’s one of them: Manitoba’s.

Shira Levine Zoe Hansen

Since shutting down her two brothels in 2002, Zoe Hansen has refocused her hustle, using her entrepreneurial skills to bring some semblance of order to the punk rock bar Manitoba’s on Avenue B. Her husband, Richard “Handsome Dick” Manitoba, may be the public face of the dive (he recently told The Local, “I’ve got to keep it going if just for one thing: I can’t let another Subway move in here”) but the husband and wife are very much a team. So much so that they’re shopping a reality show about their life in the East Village. We spoke with Ms. Hansen about sex, drugs, rock and roll, and… management?

You used to be a sex worker and ran a brothel. How did that prepare you for tending and running a bar?

I ran and owned a brothel on Park Avenue and 23rd Street and another on Second Avenue and 22nd Street. It’s all good material for me now that I am a writer. It’s just business, so it wasn’t any different. It was about being there all the time to make sure things are happening and flowing. It was really an office environment. We had to keep up, creatively, with advertising and marketing. Read more…

Stephen Rex Brown Future home of Bikinis.

Two items proved contentious at a meeting of Community Board 3’s liquor licensing committee last night: Neighbors got their bottoms in a bunch over Bikinis, a sandwich shop that had been vying for a controversial backyard space. And the new project in the former Superdive space got the committee’s thumbs-down once again.

First, the good news: At 116 Avenue C, the owners of popular newcomer Edi and the Wolf are opening a new Austrian tavern. Transfer of the existing full liquor license quickly and easily got the committee’s support. Also: Angelica Kitchen, which had been illegally allowing customers to bring their own bottles, got a vote of support for its first wine and beer license, which the owners said would help it resume BYOB service.

Meanwhile a “simple ground-floor sandwich shop,” as a representative described it, due to open at 56 Avenue C didn’t have such an easy time of it. The owners of Bikinis, which will serve the like-named Spanish sandwiches, made clear that the backyard they had previously expressed interest in using was off the table for the moment. But eleven community members lined up to protest anyway, some insisting the noise from the supermarket recycling machines on the corner and the oft-overpowering music and revelry from Nublu was already unbearable. Read more…

Suzanne Rozdeba Coal Yard and International Bar owner Molly Fitch is prepared to lay down the law on any drunken St. Patty’s Day revelers.

Anxious about the hordes of St. Patrick’s Day revelers ready to stumble their way through the neighborhood tomorrow? The Local is here to help. We called dives around the neighborhood to find out which ones would rather you not show up in a green top hat with shamrocks painted on your face. Here are your shelters from the drunken storm.

International Bar, 120 First Avenue, 212-777-1643
“I celebrate drinking at two in the afternoon every day. St. Patrick’s is a day where, all of a sudden, drinking in the afternoon is fun, and it ruins it for us,” owner Molly Fitch said. “I do not want a St. Patrick’s day pub crawl in my bar in any shape or form.”

Blue & Gold, 79 East Seventh Street, 212-777-1006
“This place is going to the anti-anti-anti haven. We’re not an Irish bar; we’re a Ukrainian bar. People will pack in here to get away,” said bartender Mike Roscishewsky. “We are absolutely not doing anything.”
Read more…

Kathryn Doyle Eric Borg and his dog Sam enjoyed coffee in front of The Bean last week.

Now that Starbucks and The Bean are squaring off on either end of their block on East Third Street, you might be wondering: which is doing swifter business? Are The Bean’s loyal customers walking that extra block to avoid the corporate coffeehouse? Or has the demure signage of the “neighborhood Starbucks” managed to win folks over?

To answer those questions, The Local stationed a reporter outside of the Starbucks on First Avenue, and another outside of The Bean on Second Avenue. They counted customers from 9 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. last Wednesday, and here’s what they found.

29 people walked into Starbucks.

43 people – and over a dozen dogs – walked into The Bean.

Siobhan Quinn said she chose The Bean partly because it accommodates Seamus, her Cavalier King Charles spaniel. “I like the owner, and it’s more neighborhoody,” she added. “There’s more of a community feel.”
Read more…