Thursday, July 9, 2015

Confirmed: Lit Lounge is closing on 2nd Avenue


[Photo from June]

The "store for rent" sign arrived above 93 Second Ave., home the past 13 years of Lit Lounge, back on June 16.

Nightlife writer Steve Lewis gets confirmation that the bar/live music venue between East Fifth Street and East Sixth Street will close some time in the next two months. Lit opened a sister bar called Currant Cafe in the McKibbin lofts in Bushwick last year.

Lewis spoke with proprietors Erik Foss and David Schwartz in a Q-and-A published at ClubPlanet.com.

An excerpt:

Steve Lewis: What was the primary reason for closing and moving shop to Bushwick?
Erik Foss: The new East Village crowd and the flight of the creative types to creative Brooklyn. It was inevitable. NYC is an ever changing animal. I am just glad that I got to be here before downtown changed into what it is now.
David Schwartz: Ehh, not happy with the newbies in the East Village. Millenials don’t go out and the artistic ones left for Brooklyn digs 4 yrs ago.

Previously on EV Grieve:
93 2nd Ave., home of Lit Lounge, is for rent

How Lit Lounge is trying to be a better neighbor

29 comments:

Russell said...

I am sorry to see them leave the East Village. This remains one of my favorite places to drink. At the same time, I'm not surprised. Bushwick, of course. Enjoy it there while you can. The creative types will be pushed out of those neighborhoods soon enough.

That aside, Lit never changed with the times. They still pretend like it's 2003 and everyone really cares about seeing Leo Fitzpatrick DJing and looking at photos in the next issue of Paper. The owners care more about the bold-faced names than the regular people who might be around supporting the place on a regular basis. Alienating your regulars then boo-hooing that the scene is dead when the celebrities move on is not a sustainable business model.

Anonymous said...

"...and the artistic ones left for Brooklyn digs 4 yrs ago."

When was this interview? 2001?

Anonymous said...

2 artistic types I know moved back to the East Village from Bushwick because they said it was so awful and increasingly expensive there.

Anonymous said...

This is so funny. I consider Lit Lounge a newcomer and jonny-come-lately to the real East Village which was there long before the owners were born. I'm not sure they would know an "artistic type" if one of them was putting paint on them.
Times change. Styles change. Neighborhoods change. We shouldn't bemoan the loss of the old to those that think they are and are now being replaced by the new newbies (good band name?)
Whether you are a hippie, yippie, gen x, grundge, or millenial....we were all the same....we thought we were artistic and novel. That is what youth is all about.

Edmund Dunn said...

"Millenials don’t go out"

Really? Please.

Giovanni said...

Millenials don't go out? All they do is go out! Who do they think are all those people lining up outside every hot new venue? Or maybe they just go somewhere else to get Lit If nothing else some of their Yelp reviews are hilarious:

"The band played downstairs...and I walked down there early, to find nobody was there, and some insanely dressed cross dressing looking ladies were down there alone just standing there. That plus some clockwork orange looking dude setting up the bar in the back.

I felt like I was in the twilight zone. The downstairs is creepy as fuck. The bathrooms looked like you could easily be murdered in them, and hung on the hook the they use to hang toilet paper. Everything was dark and grimy looking, and the place is SMALL.

The stage, also about the size of three people standing shoulder to shoulder. How they have bands perform here is mind blowing...tiny stage, tiny space, low cave like ceiling that makes acoustics a MESS. I expect most people play here because it's the only place they can book.

The bands surrounding my friends band were, well, bad. So bad that it wasn't even worth listening. One of those "yeah, I don't need to hear anymore than the first ten seconds, let's go upstairs and get a beer."

Anonymous said...

Millennials go out all the time, in ways that are different than when young adults went out when Lit opened 15 years ago.

And did they really name drop Danny Masterson?

Edmund Dunn said...

When you have three other roommates, you get the f**k out all the time. Me? Just me and the wife now.

"I take my wife everywhere, but she keeps finding her way back."

Anonymous said...

If I remember correctly, Thursdays have been "Lesbian night" at Lit for a while now, and the crowd wasn't very friendly to those that aren't like them. Maybe not the best business decision for one of the main nights of the week?

nygrump said...

I saw a bunch of good gigs there - Glenn Branca, Shackamaxon, Early Spring off the top of my head - but it was so annoying dealing with the bar I would never bother to drink. If I recall they wanted you buy from a waitress but the waitresses would always be huddled around the bar ignoring people.

Anonymous said...

It's pretty obvious that these guys just don't understand millennial's, which is odd since is the single largest demographic in the United States. Here's some info from Bon Appetite:

Today's Most Important Question: What Do Millennials Eat and Drink?
March 24, 2014 /

You may not lie awake at night and wonder, “What do millennials enjoy eating and drinking these days? What sorts of qualities drive their decisions in food consumption and beverage choices?” But that is only because there are so many informative studies and articles telling us exactly what millennials enjoy eating and drinking. And thank goodness, because this is a matter of the utmost importance. If you were born between 1980 and the early 2000s, or know someone who was, listen up: These are things that matter.

Without this dispatch from Shanken News Daily, for instance, how would we know that millennials prefer to drink alcohol with such “aesthetic principles” as “good staging and beauty”? Bacardi rum and Dewar’s Scotch are cited as examples that hit the mark.

The young folk like vodka, too, and not just the cheap swill! You know what else millennials like? Bourbon. And Irish whiskey. And American whiskey. And, oh hell, all whiskey. Don’t forget: They also drink rum, because they have dealt with “tremendous adversities such as economic uncertainties, unemployment, etc.” Right.

All this spirit consumption has some beer brewers nervous, because millennials aren’t just guzzling back brews—but when they are, you’d better believe it’s a craft beer. Unless it’s not, because they also very much enjoy Pabst Blue Ribbon.

But millennials also love wine! They love it even more than their parents love wine, and they’re pretty bossy about it, demanding “transparency and authenticity.” They also love Italian wine more than Italians, in particular sparkling and sweet varieties, like Prosecco and Moscato. They love wine so much, they’re willing to spend more than $20 per bottle on it. Why do millennials like wine so? Because drinking it is classy, and it makes them feel sophisticated. But oh no! The wine industry may be totally losing touch with those hard-to-please youngsters. The problem is that there are now so many other delicious alcoholic beverages to drink that wine just can’t hold their attention like it used do. Also, they would rather get praised than drink wine.

Not only do millennials drink things, they also eat stuff, too! And they do so with fervor and consciousness, because they cherish the experience of dining. It won’t surprise you, then, to learn that although they hate spending money on food, they’re happy to do so if food is organic or ethnic. Those crazy kids also like to eat cereal after breakfast and deconstruct their sandwiches. You might even say this is a generation of foodies (or rather, they would).

This could prove to be a problem because, “They’re health-conscious, yet prone to fits of decadent eating,” which sounds a little dangerous but mostly exciting. Their opinion about food matters, too, because they’re influencing the food scene in some pretty big cities.pretty obvious they just don't get millenials which is strange because it's the single largest demographic group in the United States. Via Bon Appetite :

Anonymous said...

It isn't that Millenials do or don't go out - it's that they have very little capacity for "the weird", and most everything needs to be clean and sanitized for them. The bathrooms in the basement were less then beautiful? Also, most Millenials won't get on board with something unless it's marketed to them - although the same could be said of most generations that grew up during the marketing age that's existed since the late 50's.

I lament the loss of Lit Lounge, mainly because it was a reliable place you could go and dance to non-Top 40 music and see small, weird bands.

Anonymous said...

I love how these businesses don't know how to adapt to the changing demographics and then blame the customers for their downfall. Maybe Erik and David should go back to school and take some business courses. That and the place always reeked of bleach, so what the hell did they expect.

Anonymous said...

I haven't been to Lit in years but the last time I was there, I found that someone had sh*t on the floor of the bathroom. Absolutely nowhere near the toilet. And this was around 8pm on a Thursday - certainly not prime sh*t on the bathroom floor time.

Anonymous said...

Cya, guys! And try to get over yourselves, you will not at all be missed by either the "artistic" types or the regular folk who have lived in the EV long before you opened that shithole...

Anonymous said...

Whether millennials go out or not, one thing's for sure...they're tame and boring!! Their tastes are on par with middle-aged people...like Ward & June Cleaver middle aged. Upscale dining and cocktailing seems like a total snooze of a way to spend your 20s. Very often I see people of this age group waiting on line to get into a restaurant before the doors open, which to me is beyond insane. Call me crazy but that used to happen if a good rock band or a movie was playing somewhere. Now...it's wait on line for 'special food'! Wow...how edgy!!!

Hey19 said...

I think Anon at 150 gets it right. Lit was uncomfortable in a lot of ways, dirty, dark and weird, and my experience of 20 somethings these days, is that they are just not interested in that.

I also agree, it is getting tougher and tougher to find a good, cheap, fun dance in Manhattan.

Anonymous said...

@1:57. That is just ungentlemanly. A properly man only shits on the floor on Fridays between 8:00pm and 2:00am, excluding Bank Holidays where you instead shit in the sink at your leisure.

Anonymous said...

I would fake cry if this had anything to do with my city. Eric , sweet guy. The rest, awful transplants that ruined my city and country homes. Special place, kids, special place.and you know it.

Anonymous said...

Boomers, and their spawn will never die, leave this continent they are both annoying and wadi simultaneity

.

Anonymous said...

I was a little drunk before, but just mild sober read Foss comment. Holy shit. Could all of you get the hell out of my city quicker. You are everything that diminishes our country, stupid, self important lazy losers" . I loathe you more than Texans.


Anonymous said...

Bizarre feeling, I want to see them burn in hell. How unchristian, or Jewish, or Muslim. I would love to see Lit owners burn in hell!, cool.

Marty E. said...

I was at Lit the night they opened, and had some great times there over the years...

...but it just isn't what it was, much like the East Village itself.

But then again, neither is Brooklyn. Bushwick will also be passe' before we know it. But that's another story entirely.

I'm sorry to see Lit go, and think that these guys did something really cool for quite a long time. I guess it ran its course. They don't seem to be all that broken up about it.

With that said, the loss of Motor City, for me, was much more tragic.

Anonymous said...

I never went to this place. I won't even notice them being gone.

Anonymous said...

Had been there for years. To me their pretentiousness and arrogance especially at the door is what turned many of a local away... Oh the irony, they are shutting up shop due to the pretentiousness and arrogance of the new east village...

bowboy said...

At the end of the previous century, you could move every 5-10 years and stay ahead of gentrification. But with the current hyper-gentrification, no one can move fast enough to stay cool. Go to bushwick or bed-stuy if ya want, but it's already over in those neighborhoods. Even most of Queens is now on the beaten track.

Anonymous said...

Detroit is lookin mighty fine. But then so is Bayonne.

Anonymous said...

Priceless. "Ehh, not happy with the newbies in the East Village. [They] don't go out." Given that it's actually one of the busiest "going out" locals around, I suppose the BS-to-English translation is "Everybody just walks right by us to go to other bars and we have't stayed relevant to our customer base. It's like they don't recognize it's their responsibility to give us custom. We're decamping for somewhere cheaper."

A poor workman blames to tools, and a poor business blames their customers. Good luck with the ultra picky hipsters.

Anonymous said...

The McKibbin Lofts ======== gentrification in Brooklyn.

This Lit guys are morons. They will be begging to come back to the EV soon