Underground dining becoming more popular

From CBS New York:

As you sit down to dinner, this story illustrates eating out like you have never experienced before. We are talking about super-secret, illegal dining experiences hosted in homes.

CBS 2 investigative reporter Tamara Leitner went undercover to see firsthand how this underground world works.

It may look like a dinner party, but it’s really an underground supper club.

The diners are a mix of New Yorkers and tourists. CBS 2’s undercover cameras captured one experience — eight people who didn’t know each other eating a meal in a stranger’s home.

That hostess, Naama Shafi, writes about food but is not a chef. Leitner found her through a website, which connects amateur foodies and professional chefs in 20 different countries with people who want unique dining experiences.

Clandestine dinner parties like the one Leitner attended have become more common in New York City. And insiders told Leitner they are completely unregulated.

When asked at the dinner, “do you ever worry about getting caught?” Michael Patlazhan responded, “I definitely do.”

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Be careful whose version of events you believe

Last weekend, there was an alleged hate crime reported at the restaurant Shi in LIC. A husband and wife and their gay friend had just left the restaurant when they were allegedly pounced on by a bunch of goons yelling racial and gay slurs. The couple then tried to get back inside the restaurant they just pleasantly dined at and the doorman/management refused to allow them back inside or call 911. That was the victims' story last week, anyway.

This sounded kind of bogus to me, so I decided to wait before posting anything about it. And my intuition was correct. The Queens Courier is now reporting that surveillance video shows that the attack happened down the street and no such refusal to help happened, and the owner says the couple had been thrown out for bad behavior. The NYPD is not charging anyone with a hate crime, and there is at least one report that they provoked the attack.

I've been duped by stories before as well, but the media did a real hatchet job on this restaurant which went viral. Social media lit up with condemnation of Shi based on lies, which is likely to affect their bottom line. I hope the restaurant sues the pants off them all. It seems all people have to do these days is cry discrimination and they are automatically believed, no matter how fishy their story sounds.

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Mattones return to screw Elmhurst again

From the Queens Chronicle:

A former parking lot between the Queens Center mall and the Long Island Expressway has been empty for the past 12 years and now the developers who own it want to build three restaurants there.

The College Point-based Mattone Group presented its plan at an informational Newtown Civic Association meeting in Corona Tuesday night. The company would bring in an Olive Garden, a Longhorn Steakhouse and Joe’s Crab Shack, which will cover approximately 25,000 to 30,000 square feet, surrounded by free parking spaces. If the plan moves forward, they predict that the establishments will open in April or May 2014.

Most of the meeting focused on the civic association members’ parking and traffic congestion-related concerns, but Robert Valdes-Clausell, an officer of the Newtown Civic Association and a member of Community Board 4, brought up the property’s history and the developer’s history of shortchanging the surrounding community.

Valdes-Clausell also noted the meeting’s unusual timing, in the summer, when many community members are away.

“This has all the trappings of something that is not kosher,” he said of the new plan.

The city’s Economic Development Corp. sold the property, which was a city parking lot, to Mattone on Dec. 17, 2001 for $2.2 million. The City Council, including the area’s former Councilman John Sabini (D-Elmhurst), approved the deal, overriding the objections of CB 4 and disregarding the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure.

Mattone’s contract with EDC contained several restrictions. The developer was supposed to build a movie theater, which Loews would operate, within four and a half years and buy the dilapidated Elmwood Theater, and give the proceeds to Catholic Medical Services, which then operated St. John’s Hospital according to Valdes-Clausell. If those restrictions were not met, the EDC was entitled to buy back the property for $1.

The Mattone Group did not comply with the restrictions, but the EDC did not repossess the property. Loews declared bankruptcy shortly after, and Mattone never found a replacement as the movie-theater business was in decline. Therefore, Mattone never purchased the Elmwood Theater and Loews sold it to the Rock Church instead. St. John’s Hospital filed for bankruptcy in 2009.

On Feb. 6, 2013 Mattone signed a new contract with the EDC, in which the developer paid $3 million to modify the original deed from 2001, allowing it to build the restaurants on the property.

Mattone claims that they did not need to seek community approval because the proposed restaurants are in accordance with area zoning laws and that informing the community before beginning construction was merely a courtesy.

Valdes-Clausell accused Mattone of putting the cart before the horse, by making a new deal with EDC without informing or asking the community about it first.

Moreover, the $3 million in the recent contract went straight to the EDC, not the community.

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The Pink Elephant of Union Turnpike

This aerial shot is of 76-84 176th Street in 1996. You can see what looks like a small 1-family house on an irregular corner lot. Cue the bulldozers!


Whoa, this is one interesting piece of architecture. We're squeezing some kind of restaurant in this space. Why? Because we can!

This building was allegedly completed in 2008, but has been sitting vacant since that time. Why? Well, I can't think of another time when I saw "TOO MANY OBJECTIONS TO LIST" on an application on the DOB's website. No C of O. What a surprise.

How would you like this thing pressed up against your house?

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Menus litter Middle Village street

Hey Crapper,

First off, I'm a HUGE fan of your work. I've been following the blog for a couple of years now and enjoy everything you post, keeps me well informed on my neighborhood and the surrounding areas. So thank you very much for that!

Secondly, I've attached a couple of pictures of 77th Place (off of Eliot Avenue) in Middle Village, from Sunday August 4th. You'll notice the placement of the menus from a new Thai restaurant called "The Green Leaf Cafe". Interestingly enough the Green Leaf Cafe's representative kindly placed their menus on the ground outside of these homes (and all the others nearest the corner of this block) and then he proceeded to drive off on his scooter the wrong way up 77th, and onto Eliot Avenue without stopping. I also took a shot of where one of the menus (that I noticed because I'm sure there were others) ended up, in the street. Completely lazy and unacceptable behavior, especially for a new restaurant hoping to thrive in the community.

Thanks for all you do!

Sincerely,
Dan from Middle Village

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Site helps people turn homes into illegal restaurants

From DNA Info:

EatWith, the popular website that allows amateur and professional chefs to invite strangers into their homes for dinner parties and cooking lessons, is set to arrive in New York at the beginning of August.

Launched last year in Israel and popular among travelers in Europe, EatWith is sort of an Airbnb for dinner parties. Foodies can post a meal, date, time and price on the site, and interested guests can sign up, pay the fee and chow down. Along with meals, the site also lets hosts offer classes on how to make — and eat — specialty food like challah.

But the site's business model may not be legal within the five boroughs, according to the Department of Health. A spokeswoman with the Health Department said people who offer meals to the public for money are considered food-service establishments — and need all the proper permits and inspections.

"The city does not allow meals to be served to members of the public in someone’s home," the agency said in a statement.

"However, caterers with valid Health Department permits are allowed to bring meals to someone’s home from their permitted establishments."

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Up-and-coming Jamaica...

Courtesy of DNA Info, we have Denny's looking for location in Jamaica (as well as Jackson Heights), a Sheraton Hotel planned for downtown, and concerts and other feel-good events scheduled to showcase the vibrant! diverse! neighborhood. Personally, I think that Joe Moretti should lead tours of the area so that daytripping hipsters and tourists can see the real Jamaica.

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Developer malfeasance causes restaurant to close

From WPIX:

Nom Wah Tea Parlor — a famous tea parlor in Chinatown — has been closed down for the past two weeks.

The owners say it’s because of a disagreement between them and the owner of another building.

Guess who’s in the middle of this one?

There was a time when a hand shake was all you needed to seal a deal. Yes, but today it’s wise to have a lawyer draw up a legal document so there is no room for misinterpretation.

This is what Wilson Tang was thinking. And unfortunately, that is why is restaurant is closed.

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Sanitation worker dumps trash in front of restaurant

From Eyewitness News:

It doesn't get much clearer than this. A New York City sanitation worker picks up a black garbage bag, dumps it on a doorstep, and rips the bag open. When he walks away from the heap of trash, the letters "DSNY" are clearly visible on the back of his bright yellow vest.

The incident took place on the doorstep of Fast Eddies on West 47th and 10th Avenue, owned in part by Richie Winckelman. The time stamp on the surveillance video - 6:59 Saturday morning. From the angle pointed East on West 47th, you can see the large sanitation sitting in the intersection. In another shot, the worker is, in fact doing his job - dumping the trash can into the back of the truck, not onto the sidewalk.

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