Open Thread Wednesday

By on April 9, 2024 11:09 pm in open thread

What’s on your mind? Comment away!

Share this Story:

  • Banet

    No comments yet? Wow!

    So I went to the Brooklyn diner again and it’s dramatically improved.

    Went for lunch. 95% full at 11:45am.

    Got the hamburger with sautéed onions and bacon. It was excellent.

    I note they changed out the bun to a potato bun from what I saw the first week which was a much bigger bun covered with what seemed like an absurd amount of sesame seeds.

    They also more than doubled the absurdly small slivers of pie. The banana cream pie remains incredible. I had the blueberry before and it was great. This time I got apple pie and I won’t get it again. Too sweet.

    Happy it’s improving and remains busy.

  • Peter Scott-Thomas

    There are some “issues” with the website that weren’t present even 3 weeks back…. Hence, a Wednesday with just one comment. FWIW – as if anyone cares, and I say that with real sadness – “Firefox” seems to be “raggedy,” while Chrome is doing just fine.

    I’d like to put in a bunch of positive words about the new diner’s staffing! They do seem to hire smart, and this is the furthest thing from absentee ownership, so I, too, am hopeful that it will succeed in many ways that seem to be spelling doom for Park Plaza. Of course, there are many differences between the 2 operations, but right now, only the new place shows any sign of “giving a damn.”

  • MaggieO

    I’m on the Montague Diner bandwagon. I knew it was a good sign when the menu said “breakfast served all day”. I had a tasty tuna melt, my companion a lovely greek omelet, some cava, tater tots, and apple pie a la mode. Service was friendly, competent, timely.

  • Nosey Neighbor

    Armed robbers hit two friendly neighborhood smoke shops last week. How many smoke shop robberies does that make this year? At least four. I think the city seriously needs to reconsider how these businesses work.

  • Nosey Neighbor
  • Andrew Porter
  • karateca2000

    I tried to eat there on Saturday at 1. The wait was 1 1/2 hour wait. We ended up going somewhere else. I guess I’ll have to try again once the excitement goes down.

  • Banet

    The next day workmen were installing counter to ceiling plexiglass dividers to prevent people from jumping over the counter or accessing the inventory.

    Can anyone explain how these stores are allowed to exist? They’re blatantly illegal. Even if they were not illegal because of their lack of license, they’re clearly illegal in that they can’t possibly pay their rent from the business transactions that occur. I say this as I make it a habit to glance through the window every time I pass one of these (many) businesses. It’s the very rare exception that I see anyone resembling a potential customer. Usually it’s just a bored employee reading a book or looking at their phone.

    If we can’t go after the proprietors, is there a way to go after the landlords?

  • Andrew Porter

    I had a food urge for chopped liver, which I haven’t eaten in decades. When I went to Trader Joe’s a week ago I stopped in at Shelsky’s across the street, but it was jammed with shoppers. So I decided to buy some chopped liver somewhere else.

    Big mistake. No food stores carry the stuff any more—and I went to a dozen places around the Heights.

    When I went back to Shelsky’s this week, the surge had been and receded. Have been slowly eating through the CL I bought there. Memories of my mother making this when I was little, her putting the cooked liver, onion and hard boiled egg through one of those old food grinders.

    The memory, of course, is so much better than the reality is now…
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4380580c7632ba314f2bcb9a549a3632ae5c0a9d1432cbc93ce0de20eab48560.jpg

  • Bear

    I ate there last weekend, long wait for the food, and most of the other tables had left. Burger overcooked, but tasty. A side of toast for corn beef hash(it was tasty) n eggs costs $3, and it’s ONE SLICE. After I asked if that was a mistake, he brought me another slice, he didn’t charge for. So, I’ll go back.

  • B.

    You can still buy chopped liver from the kosher deli on Avenue T, around the corner from Kings Plaza. Just a fact — I know it doesn’t help you.

    What I want to know is why no one sells liverwurst anymore.

  • Peter Scott-Thomas

    It can’t be more than 2-3 years since there were reports of a functioning brothel on Montague St. in these pages. Anybody know if anything was done – or was it an April Fool’s thing?

    Surely, the BHA has – HAS TO HAVE – concerns other than the futile one of trying to keep America’s oldest suburb looking like it’s 1930! Every cannabis operation – especially the low-rent ones like the one next to Shelsky’s – means that we WON’T have a shoemaker or a butcher or … in those spaces. Not to mention rhe inevitable violence that is bound to accompany – Banet has it right – these cash businesses selling illegal substances.

    At a minimum, the City Council should carefully craft a bill that taxes these businesses heavily. Why wait ’til public health is proven to suffer? Given the way NYS is rolling out “licensed” establishments, it is inevitable that some of these marginal and no-doubt criminal operations will sell something laced with something else.

  • Effective Presenter

    Maybe Lassen & Hennings could order chopped liver for you?

    Our experience with L&H has been outstanding a high level of customer service.

  • Effective Presenter

    We miss China Chile, owners Christine and Earl the $495 Chinese food lunch included a soda.

  • Peter Scott-Thomas

    Four $495, that’s the very least they could do, I think!

  • Nosey Neighbor

    A timely NY Times article makes me think things are hopeless:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/12/nyregion/illegal-weed-gale-brewer.html

  • Andrew Porter

    There was also a brothel in the supposed massage place at the corner of Remsen and Clinton. OTOH, there are legitimate massage places around BH that don’t involve the exchange of bodily fluids.

  • MaggieO

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/993f170cda570b0eece7251e3b24051b492d88e77f15b1a6ed525267928e0089.jpg
    Not super impressed by the visibility of this posting about rear facade changes at 170 Clinton.

  • MaggieO

    here’s info on the actual meeting https://madmimi.com/p/d282491

  • Angela De Marco

    just read in Brooklyn paper robberies up 139% in 84th precinct.

  • Andrew Porter
  • MaggieO

    … I would have gotten a closer view of a notice written in too small sized font with a link to boilerplate info about CB2 rather than specifics about the application for 170 Clinton.
    Someone forgot to get their LPC permit and now they’re trying to pick up the pieces…