Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Full CB3 says no to fast-food Italian and fishmonger for Avenue A

During a nearly four-hour meeting in a steamy PS 20 auditorium tonight, Community Board 3 denied Frank Prisinzano's application to open a fast-food style Italian restaurant on Avenue A and Second Street. Raguboy would have seated 121 people inside and another 44 people on a sidewalk cafe at the former Graceland grocery.

As you know, the CB3/SLA committee members were deadlocked in their vote last week. Prisinzano, who owns EV Italian empire Frank, Lil' Frankie's and Supper, was on hand as were several of the residents who spoke out against another liquor license on Avenue A during the CB3/SLA meeting.

Meanwhile, the board also denied Keith Masco's attempt to open Sea on A, a fish market/restaurant at 171 Avenue A. Read all about that here.

More tomorrow on this often contentious meeting...

14 comments:

  1. Yeah, funny... I don't recall having heard him mention the name before...

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  2. Oh jesus, maybe it's for the best. If I ever had to give directions that included "Raguboy" as a landmark I'd feel ridiculous.

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  3. Did you ever hear Raguboy during any of the other discussions Ryan?

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  4. What if it was called Chef BoyarWheeeee! & only served canned Ravioli & Alphabet City Soup...

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  5. having sat through these sla comittee meetings for years; listening to prospective "restaurant" owners propose the amenities they will provide for the benefit of the block (art gallery, meeting space, lunch/dinner kitchen, anything they can throw at the wall) and then they are merely another bar with nothing but fantastic free/3-for-1 drink offers, loud music, vomiting customers, etc. etc. it is hard to fault any block that rejects another bar, no matter how fantastically it is presented. think of little red riding hood and the wolf. once the bar is open, no matter what stipulation they signed, it is almost impossible to get them under control once they're out of control.
    and if there is an outside space it's curtains for sleep (no pun intended) for anyone living around that outside space.
    if folks (owners, bartaenders, customers - ALL) would only lower their volume instead of having contests of how dunk, loud and obnixious they can be, residents might be a little less suspicious and a little more giving.
    try going without sleep for a few nights and then complain about how hard it is to get a liquor license in this over-saturated (with bars) east village/lower east side community.
    this is not the city's playground. it is a rapidly disappearing neighborhood which once was tolerant to almost anything until the hip and selfish decided that anything goes, no matter what.
    give us a break. try partying that hard where you live!
    blueglass

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  6. if the denial of this italian joint results in a 7-11 going into this space, i am going to go insane. seriously.

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  7. I'm sure our neighborhood will be far better off with a soulless new 7-Eleven. Thanks CB3!

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  8. Well, after defending Frank, I cant say I will miss a place called Raguboy, reminds me of Teriyaki Boy. But I think the neighborhood would have benefitted from a fishmonger, its too bad CB3 is so polarizing that they cannot understand a business that might have a liquor liscence and not contribute to "hell". 7-11 the Fer up, to paraphrase Moss, but it seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face. I need to find a new blog, I get bummed out when I hear about cool places that might have been, better to just not know.

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  9. No Grieve, that was the first I'd heard of it. As a marketer I can only imagine two possibilities. 1) It was Frank's nickname growing up cooking in his grandma's kitchen. Or 2) He's throwing that around in front of the board to make it seem like there's no fucking way it could be a bar people would go to.

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  10. And after a little detective work I can strike my second theory--Frank bought the domain name raguboy.com in 2006. I can't say that out loud without thinking of a comic book character that uses sauce as a weapon, and has a cute dog named tortellini as a sidekick.

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  11. chef boyarwhoo-hoo?

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  12. Just throwing this out there, but would covering an outdoor space make a difference, especially in a back garden? Would putting up a tent or wooden structure to muffle the sound, yet still be 'outside' be enough to let customers lol but still let residents sleep?

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  13. Unfortunately, it looks like you are excluded from the surf n' turf night. You excluded from ravioli night, you excluded from chicken cutlet night.

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