Poco Closed?

I was on my way home from work this afternoon when I passed by Poco, the popular restaurant on Avenue B and East 3d Street. I was hurrying to get home before the full brunt of Winter Storm Cato bore down on the East Village, and therefore my head, but I stopped to take this picture:

Poco closed.

As you can see, Poco is closed. I thought that perhaps the recent assault on their sidewalk caused such distress for the owner that he/she decided to shutter permanently!

I even checked inside the wind-guard doors:

Inside the wind-guard doors.

Definitely closed.

When I got home, I looked online, only to discover that they don't open until 5:00pm during the week.

False alarm!

#eastvillage #avenueb #3rdstreet #poco #winterstormcato #restaurants

The Truth on First Avenue

Truer words were never… put onto a chalk board, on First Avenue:

No brunch served here.

I think this couple just left Poco because it was too… what's the word? Cacophonous?

Oh yeah… in the East Village!

#eastvillage #spanky&darlas #firstavenue #brunch #poco

Eschew Obfuscation

I passed by the very popular restaurant Poco, on Avenue B and East 3rd Street, this afternoon, and found this spray painted on the sidewalk:

Wuzzat?

Now that's what you call a $10 word! This word is so long that in another picture I saw of it, on another blog, the photographer couldn't even get it all into the frame!

I would have rotated it bit, counter-clockwise, and brought it out of the… what do you call that? the corrugated part of the sidewalk.

East Villagers are darn fancy writers!

#eastvillage #poco #avenueb #3rdstreet

$28 Brunch

Not too long ago, I wrote about this restaurant, Poco, on Avenue B and East 3rd Street, and how it was so popular that people stood waiting on the sidewalk to get in.

Lining up for a $28 brunch.

Why would people line up to pay $28 for brunch? I think I know what it is. Take a look at the fork on their sign:

Poco sign.

It has five prongs!

Now you know… the rest of the story.

#eastvillage #poco #restaurants #signs #brunch #avenueb #3rdstreet

Sidewalks

What do you do when more people want to come into your store than the store can comfortably accommodate? Some East Village store owners make the effort to organize those waiting outside, others let people mill about.

This was the scene outside Big Gay Ice Cream a week or so ago:

Queueing up for some scream.

You can see in this case that it's not hard to pass the group. They even stand by the curb.

The alternative is that employed by Cornerstone, a popular restaurant on Avenue B and East 2nd Street:

Amassing for some brunch

Churches also employ the sidewalk-blocking method, but I only thought of this now, and didn't get a picture of people outside a church. Theaters, too. Lots of places, actually.

Either way, I've determined that it's no big deal. It's easy to walk through a group of people, and perhaps say "Excuse me".

I do think people standing on the sidewalk should be more aware though, but I've always thought that about people walking too. They're just not.

A friend of mine recently told me that he has a plan: he's not going to move for people who aren't looking where they're going. I told him I've done this many times in all my years in New York, and it doesn't work: 1) The person being bumped does not think "Wow, I just got bumped because I wasn't looking where I was going. I should start looking!"; and 2) The person being bumped receives only one bump in the day, the person doing the bumping receives dozens of bumps. It just backfires.

Looking Inside

A lot of places these days have big open windows and doors and you can take pictures of people (if there are any there) eating/ drinking/etc.

A lot of times when I pass by, no one is there except workers setting up, and people like me who don't like to go when it's busy.

Poco, Avenue B and 3rd Street.

Kazuza Hookah Lounge, Avenue A.

Hayaty, Avenue A.

10 Bistro, Avenue A.

Avenue A, I don't know the name.