Shanghai Square, the new Chinese restaurant slated to replace Izu/Lemongrass Grill on our 13th St. side has released its menu. First reaction: it’s aggressively boring. There appears to be nothing on it that suggests this will be anything other than another run-of-the-mill Chinese.
Simo Pizza is scheduled to arrive on University Place in the former home of Argo Tea (and before that, good ol’ Dean and DeLuca) sometime in the fall. They already have a branch in the Meatpacking District, and the pizza looks good…and affordable.
The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation reports:
At a meeting for affected property owners last night, the Landmarks Preservation Commission unveiled two small study areas for potential proposed historic districts in the East Village — one on Tompkins Square North and one centered along Second Avenue between Houston St. and St. Marks. This is a preliminary step in their consideration of these districts; the next step will be a public presentation and hearing before Community Board #3’s Landmarks Subcommittee on Thursday, May 12 at 6 pm at BRC, 30 Delancey Street, btw. Chrystie and Forsyth Streets.
Simply Grid announced today that it has launched a food cart electrification pilot in New York City’s Union Square. This is the first example of a mobile food vendor on New York City’s public streets using grid electricity rather than a noisy, polluting generator. Citywide, more than 3,000 mobile food carts create the equivalent pollution emissions of approximately 10,000 cars. This pilot, launched in conjunction with the New York City Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability, Con Edison, the NYC Department of Transportation, and Closed Loop Advisors, will last for up to a year and abate up to 9 metric tons of CO2.
Simply Grid’s technology allows lot owners and municipalities to provide grid electricity to mobile food vendors which makes them cleaner, quieter, and more profitable. Electricity is made available to these vendors via outlets in industry standard electricity pedestals which have been customized with proprietary metering controllers. The controllers connect wirelessly to Simply Grid’s cloud-based platform which manages customer accounts, metering, and billing. The system allows vendors to initiate service with their mobile phones and connect to the electric grid with cables they already use with their generators. Grid electricity is a significantly cheaper energy source for food vendors, and it also eliminates the pollution and noise associated with running a generator.
It’s not quite ready yet, but after two years there is finally movement at the new location of Serafina Express at 110 University Place. Italian food soon.
