Archive | November, 2009

New wine shop from Smith & Vine folks

By on November 30, 2009 in Shopping
Photo, Off The Presses

Photo, Off The Presses

Patrick Watson and Michele Pravda, the couple behind Smith & Vine, Stinky Bklyn, and the JakeWalk, will open their second wine shop in a few weeks, next to Trader Joe’s on Court Street. The shop will be called the Brooklyn Wine Exchange. It’ll be nice to have a wine shop right near TJ’s, but I sure was hoping for some 3-buck chuck coming to the nabe!

Off The Presses: Watson said the new stop will focus New World wines, meaning vino from the Americas, Australia, New Zealand on the like. Smith & Vine tends to focus on small, artisinal vintners from Europe, though it does have a small selection of American wines. Given Watson & Pravda’s good taste-and my general aversion to the big bodied, International Style of most South American and Australia wines-it will be interested to see what sort of inventory they come up.

The Brooklyn Wine Exchange will also have an education area where wine classes will be conducted. It will not be a ditto of Smith & Vine, but have a character of its own. Watson & Pravda have long conducted occasional wine classes, but they have been off-premise, in nearly restaurants.

Comments { 3 }

Cobble Hill & Carroll Gardens walking tours

By on November 30, 2009 in Carroll Gardens, Events

Lost City has announced walking tours of Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens. The Cobble Hill tour will take place on Sunday, December 13 at 11:00 am, and the Carroll Gardens tour will take place on Sunday, December 20, at 11:00 am. More information can be found here, and reservations can be made  by emailing lostcitybrooks@gmail.com. The cost for precious Lost City tours has been $20.

Comments { 0 }

Leftovers Friday

By on November 27, 2009 in Arts and Entertainment, Boerum Hill, Carroll Gardens, Celebrity Residents, Events

Here’s to hoping everyone had a fun and food-filled Thanksgiving, and is having a leftover turkey/stuffing/cranberry sauce sandwich filled Friday. A few bits about what’s going on in the nabe: The Post reports that Lucali has been given the go-ahead to keep a mobster on its payroll, Jonathan Lethem has added another reading of Chronic City in order to meet his self-imposed goal of getting through it from cover to cover, and Norah Jones is dating a fiction writer. Is it you?

Comments { 0 }

Great Gowanus Pilgrimage Pre-Thanksgiving Scavenger Hunt

By on November 25, 2009 in Carroll Gardens, Events, Hipsters, Park Slope

Head to the Bell House (149 7th Street) at 5pm today for happy hour and to sign up for the Great Gowanus Pilgrimage Pre-Thanksgiving Scavenger Hunt. It’s $5 per person to participate, with 2-4 people per team. Free shots along the way! E-mail scavengerhunt@thebellhouseny.com to register.

In the mood for adventure? We thought so . . .
Come explore the depths of Gowanus, Park Slope and Carroll Gardens – meet some characters, do some shots, hunt and gather things you never knew existed! You could win a sweet cash prize and tons of gift certificates, or at the very least we promise you a Brooklyn night you won’t soon forget.

5pm – 7pm: Happy Hour check-in with $1 off everything and $4 select pints. Free Thanksgiving sub & munchies
7pm – 10pm: Let the scavenging begin!
10pm: Bring your goods back to The Bell House for points towards big prizes including gift certificates from Brooklyn Tattoo, Babeland, Bierkraft, Press 195, and more. Winner takes all! Plus $3 vodka drinks, $5 Jamesons and $5 Hendricks drink specials for hunt participants and a super fun dance-tastic you-don’t-have-to-work-tomorrow party complete with a DJ!

Comments { 0 }

Fire at Smith and Warren Streets

By on November 24, 2009 in Events, News
Photo, Brownstoner.

Photo, Brownstoner.

There was a fire today next to the barber shop on Smith Street. Brownstoner has pictures of the blaze, during and after.

Comments { 6 }

The rise of the local chain

By on November 24, 2009 in Boerum Hill, Carroll Gardens, Economy, Shopping


CNN features a story on a “new” phenomenon: the local chain. And what better area to focus on than Smith Street, where Patrick Watson and his wife Michelle Pravda have a mini-empire with Smith & Vine, Stinky Bklyn, and the Jakewalk. Also mentioned in the story is Loretta Gendville, owner of the area chain of stores.

On a Thursday night at The Jakewalk, patrons say loyalty to Smith and Vine and Stinky Brooklyn was the main reason for them choosing The Jakewalk for a drink. “I know the quality of what we’re eating and drinking will be great here by buying their products at their stores,” say’s Sara, a 20-something living in the neighborhood.

Caroline, another local resident, told us that it’s the personal touches that attracted her. “When you get to know personalities and you know that somebody owns this shop and they’re doing one project here and one project there. It’s great! You want to check it out.”

Comments { 3 }

Inflated rents lead to empty storefronts

By on November 24, 2009 in Economy, Real Estate

The Daily News spoke to Brooklyn small business owners who were left with no choice but to vacate the their space due to inflated rents. Mentioned in the article are Kyung Dong Oh and his wife Kyung Ja Oh, who closed the doors to their Cobble Hill dry cleaners for good in March of last year.

“It was hard,” said Kyung Dong Oh, an immigrant from South Korea who opened the shop in 1984, and saw it become a beloved neighborhood fixture. “My store was not only a store, it was a meeting place.”

Twenty months later, the space on the corner of Court and Baltic Sts. still sits empty. [New landlord Salvatore Prestigiacomo- note NY Daily News printed the wrong name in its coverage] is still asking $6,500 for the space – and no one has bitten.

It’s one of several cases around the borough where landlords saw gold during boom times and shed longtime tenants by raising rents, only to see their storefronts sit empty as the economy turned sour.


Comments { 0 }

D’Amico’s 59-year coffee roaster

By on November 23, 2009 in Arts and Entertainment, Carroll Gardens, Events, History, News

Featured in a NY Post article about New Yorkers who’ve been at their jobs for 40 or more years is Frank D’Amico, who started working at his father’s coffee shop, D’Amico Foods, on Court Street 59 years ago. Frank, 82, has passed the store down to his son, Frank Jr., but still works a few days at the shop.

It’s hard to quantify just how much the neighborhood and the world around D’Amico Foods have changed in the 61 years since, but some things haven’t. Coffee beans are still roasted daily, and Emanuele’s son Frank still straps on an apron, 59 years after he started working in his father’s shop.

The younger D’Amico, 82, started his professional life as a draftsman. Born and raised in Carroll Gardens (long before realtors coined that name), he’d enlisted at 17 and spent the last two years of World War II on a Navy ship in the Pacific.

Comments { 3 }

Tasti D Lite shut down

By on November 23, 2009 in Food, Real Estate

Following last week’s seizure of Tasti D Lite on Court Street, there’s now a large sign in the window that says “Closed, Thank you for your patronage.” Well, there go the two fully-punched cards I have waiting to be traded in for free medium-sized frozen confections. I’d like a self-serve fro-yo place take over the space, like Yogurtland. What would you like to see open there?

Comments { 12 }

Spotted: Sotomayor on Smith Street

By on November 20, 2009 in Food, Government

Politico reports a Justice Sonia Sotomayor sighting:

A rare benefit of being a Brooklyn based political reporter: Michael Crowley tweets, “It’s not every night you sit down in a Brooklyn restaurant (Po) and notice a Supreme Court justice (Sotomayor) two tables away.”

“She left her purse on a chair; stern-faced security guys came back for it about 30 min[utes] later,” he writes.

Comments { 1 }
← Older posts