So long to another Lower East Side live-music venue.
R Bar, a reliable spot to watch bands and burlesque shows, has closed for good. (We can't say much for the bar at other times.)
As we understand it, the bar at 218 Bowery just south of Prince closed without much warning earlier in the week… at least without much warning to employees. There isn't any mention of the closure on the R Bar website or social media properties. However, the phone line is no longer in service.
There is an approved permit on file for an interior renovation.
One person familiar with the situation here said that the bar will return as an "overpriced yuppified euro-trash hellhole."
The former R Bar will return as Rebelle, a new restaurant from some of the partners involved with Pearl & Ash next door. Rebelle's chef comes from Spring, a restaurant in the Ninth Arrondissement of Paris.
4 comments:
Yet another stupid, pseudo-portentious name I'm sure the owner hopes is vaguely menacing, as if having such an implied "threat" gives them some kind of street cred among broz'nhoz - "Ooh, look, Rebelle! That sounds dangerous! Let's go be rebelles!" Fail.
Living 3 doors down, I was a fan of Pioneer there, local & low-key; and R Bar didn't offend me, but lately it was just allowing hipsters to clog up the sidewalk on weekends and throw up in my doorway. Good riddance.
Pearl & Ash ain't so bad either except that it just encourages other, worse restauranteurs to join the gentrification fray. Makes it hard for the unfortunate folks who count on the Bowery as a place of last resort, and I hate that.
P&A expanding is probably the best thing that could happen for the neighborhood. I mean, when has a small, cool place ever tripled its size, and it wasn't the beginning of the end? Talk about over-reach. At least I know when to start the clock on their death watch.
I hear that restaurant closings this year are twice what they were last year. And I bet those knuckleheads can't understand why. ugh.
Is crash mansion still there?
Sigh...
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