From Circus to Mini-Golf

ByDon

Carnival, the nightclub atop Bowlmor Lanes, will be transformed into a mini-golf nightclub called The Greenwich Village Country Club in October.

Similar Posts

  • Union Square Cafe Nears the End

    ByDon

    From the Times:
    The countdown has begun to the closing of the 16th Street space that this influential restaurant has occupied for 30 years. The cafe, which was the first piece of Danny Meyer’s culinary empire, has been a favorite of New York’s publishing world and jump-started the renaissance of the Union Square area. But it will not renew its lease at a higher rent, and in the spring will relocate to nearby 235 Park Avenue South, at East 19th Street.

    To mark the final days at its current spot, from Dec. 1 to 12, the last day of service, the restaurant will switch to a three-course dinner menu called the 12 Nights of Union Square Cafe, highlighting some of its best-known seasonal dishes, including garganelli with white truffles, beef tartare, lamb braciole and Berkshire rack of pork. There are optional wine pairings from some of the restaurant’s favorite producers. Lunches will feature the regular à la carte menu:

    Dinner reservations Dec. 1 to 12 by phone only, $85 prepaid; lunch reservations up to 28 days ahead, opentable.com;

    Union Square Cafe, 21 East 16th Street, 212-243-4020,

    unionsquarecafe.com.

  • Park Arrests Way Up

    ByDon

    Something has gone wrong in Union Square Park this summer. Complaints about illegal behavior, drug use, and vagrancy have led to a 320% increase in police citations. Now the police are patrolling much mor aggressively, as are hired security teams from the Union Square BID.

  • Union Sq. Park Restaurant Update

    ByDon

    We still don’t know who’s behind the design of the upcoming and controversial Union Square restaurant, but we do know who’ll be cooking there: chef Don Pintabona of O-V Hospitality Group, formerly of Tribeca Grill. In exchange for running the restaurant, O-V Hospitality has to invest $1.1 million in its construction. The design will “integrate historic elements of Union Square,” be called City Farm Cafe, and open in spring 2012.

  • Farmer’s Market Sales Way Down

    ByDon

    The New York Times reports:

    This season’s inclement weather affected farmers’ markets as much as their crops, and customers lost early on never really came back. Just ask Michael Hurwitz, director of greenmarkets for the Council on the Environment of New York City.

    “God, this was a tough year,” Mr. Hurwitz said. Market problems snowballed from the spring, when less produce than usual was available because of rain, cool weather and late planting on vendors’ farms. “That impacted customers coming back to market,” he said. “Spring is not for making money; it’s for getting customers in. Fall is for making money — and less people all season came to the markets.”

    Those all-important weekends, including the two biggest market weekends of the season in mid-October, were rainy, and that meant fewer shoppers, Mr. Hurwitz said. At the largest market, in Union Square, business was off by as much as 40 percent this season. The economic crisis compounded the low turnout, though on the bright side, he said, it generally kept vendors from raising prices.

    But farmers like John Glebocki had little choice. Mr. Glebocki is an Orange County farmer who sells his produce exclusively at 22 farmers’ markets, most of them in the New York City system. He figures he lost nearly 50 percent of his 80 acres of mixed vegetables, but he has faith in his customers. “People understand it’s a low production year,” he said, “and if we have to tack on another quarter a pound.”