Seen & Heard: Momofuku Karaoke

••• I went to last night’s meeting of the Community Board 1 Licensing Committee to learn more about the plans for a bar at 71 Worth and the rooftop expansion at Spring Studios (50 Varick), but 71 Worth was a no-show and I had to leave before Spring came up. (If you attended and would like to submit a report, please do! UPDATE: Spring decided at the last minute to wait till the next meeting, in September.) That said, I did learn two interesting things:

—The owner of Bavaria Bier Haus on Stone Street wants to turn the second floor—currently a party room—into a “wizardry, sorcery, magical, fantasy concept” where guests don robes and purple hats and do something with wands. There will be three “lessons” a day, with 30 to 40 people in each group. Different strokes for different folks!
—The name/concept for the Momofuku restaurant coming to Pier 17 at the Seaport District mall is still under wraps, but the representative said it’ll serve breakfast—possibly a first in Momofukuland, unless the one that was in a Midtown hotel did—and have “occasional karaoke,” which is definitely a first for the company.

••• Good Food Kollection has leased 56 Reade, where Grazin’ was at one point: “Founded in 2017 [by Eddy Eskenazi], Good Food Kollection is a New York City based restaurant group that specializes in developing, acquiring and building partnerships with young, global, innovative brands and chefs. The core philosophy of the business is to create value through a data driven approach to understand key trends and apply hands-on management from conceptualization to business execution. Good Food Kollection’s goal is to be a key player in the F&B scene in NYC.” The website says GFK has two projects in the works: catering and 212 Bagels, either of which could be based on Reade. I reached out but didn’t hear back.

••• I don’t trust Amazon, and I make an effort to use it as little as possible. When the Prime discount signage starting popping up at our Whole Foods, I linked my account, but I refuse to download the app. (I have enough apps.) As a result, I have to announce my phone number to the cashier and everyone else within earshot. One would think that Amazon could let me enter it on the credit card keypad, like at Duane Reade…. Worse, I tend to save all of 30¢, which is barely worth the hassle, and I’m tempted to skip it going forward—except today, after checking out, I received an email promising me a $10 credit on Amazon for Prime Day, its big promotion next week. I despise the idea of taking part in the corpocratic holiday, but $10 is rather seductive…. P.S. “A Very English Scandal,” the three-episode miniseries on Amazon Prime, is excellent.

••• “Out of curiosity I went to a presentation of a study made by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers about possible anti-hurricane structures in New York harbor,” reports I. “It was in BMCC. It was very boring and basically they just show a PDF presentation that you can find here.”

••• The condo going up at 11 Greene (northwest corner of Canal) is coming along….

 

5 Comments

  1. The price of a bottle of liquid plain yoghurt/kefir went from $3.39 to $3.79 as soon as Prime discounts began.

    $2.99 at Trader Joe’s.

  2. Whole Foods no longer has rainchecks for sale items which are “out of stock” when on sale. I went there the other day to buy something on non-Prime sale, granted it was the last day but I went in the morning. I asked the associate to check if they have any in the back. He said no, it’s out of stock. We all know it’s a big lie because the next morning when it was no longer on sale it magically appeared. I asked for a rain check for the sale item and there is now a sign by the service desk that they no longer have rainchecks.

    Also on two seperate occasions where fruit or salad had a non-Prime sale sign the cashier charged me the regular price. I returned the next day for a refund and got it.

    Welcome Trader Joe’s, a bit of a walk and worth it especially for non-perishables. I do wish that Best Market would have decent fruit and salad which usually are well past their prime.

  3. Shopping at Trader Joe’s is a pleasure. And no lines, even on a weekend morning. I’m never going back to Whole Foods.

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