The bar-restaurant at 126 First Ave. between East Seventh Street and St. Mark's Place will close as Lunasa after service tonight. But the place will remain the same, except for the name.
The owners offer this explanation on Facebook:
We have some really sad news, today is the last day of Lunasa. After almost 12 years in the East Village, Lunasa will cease to exist from closing time tonight forth. We want to take this opportunity to thank all of our loyal customers, our not so loyal customers and even the irregulars that have graced our door over this time. You all mean so much to us and you are the reason we have managed to stay open for more than a decade. We feel so blessed to have met you all and we will cherish the memories (well some of them anyway).
The truth is very few of you could pronounce the bloody name so you lot are partially responsible for its demise, we never thought for a second all that time ago that 6 letters would be so difficult to say properly, it's only 3 syllables for feck sake! Now we know why so many immigrants changed their names after arriving in this beautiful new world.
Well now is the time for us to do the same (this is not all bad news), while the name Lunasa is getting buried, a new name has been carefully chosen with pronunciation as the primary element in the rebranding process. It is a 7 letter word but the key is it only has two syllables, so we are mildly confident that we won't hear similar abominations we heard with our beloved Lunasa.
Ladies and gentlemen we'd like to introduce you to The Grafton. Named after one of Dublin's most famous streets, The Grafton will be very much like Lunasa, except you just won't have to repeat yourself four times to your friends when your telling them where you are.
Tonight is Lunasa's last night and we'd love to see you, swing on by to say so long and tomorrow is the first day of a new era as The Grafton, so swing on by to say hello.
I'd like them to serve drafts in pints instead of the smaller 12 oz glasses - and maybe if yr waitresses were in the waitress area and not sitting at the other side of the bar dicking with their cellphones it would work better.
ReplyDeleteI'm well aware of the American phobia of pronouncing ethnic words and names but I'm still struggling to comprehend how people could mispronounce "Lunasa".
ReplyDeleteDear NYgrump: Once a non-busy bartender ignores me at bar -- by being too busy with their cellphones or whatever -- I don't go back!
ReplyDeleteI believe that they were trying to be funny about the Lunasa pronunciation. Makes a better story than just announcing a new name for the bar.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry, what's the new name - Graft-town? Gaffer? Grapplin? Gapping? Guppy one? Is that with a soft G or a hard G? oh heck and friggin' lunar ass.
ReplyDeleteif it keeps the bros from coal yard i'm all for it
ReplyDeleteSo nice of the owners to apply for a transfer of liquor license. NOT!
ReplyDeleteSuch a horrendous bar but indeed hope it stays open (with whatever name) to keep coalyard clean
ReplyDeleteIT'S LUGHNASADH, BITCHES!
ReplyDeleteAs soon as I saw a post about the name change I knew the usual suspects would be complaining about Lunasa. If you avoid Friday nights (and the occasional happy hour) Lunasa is typically frequented by EV regulars. Obviously I enjoy the place.
ReplyDeleteNYGrump needs to keep his shtick consistent. Bouncing back in forth between complaining about glasses being too small and neo-prohibitionism.
It's not changing ownership, as far as I know, why would it need to transfer its liquor license? [Hint: It wouldn't]
Saw all my world-cup soccer matches there. Great place to watch soccer. I don't care what they call themselves, always felt very welcome and comfortable in there. Will remain a customer. And Scottie is a wonderful bartender. Would go there much more often if only they opened a bit earlier.
ReplyDeleteOrder a Pilsner Urquell and it's a 1/2 liter.
ReplyDeleteAfter pronouncing it Lou-nasa for countless years, I was recently surprised to hear it was actually pronounced luna-suh, so I understand where they are coming from.
ReplyDeleteLOO-nuh-suh. Feast of the light god Lugh. And "Lunasa" is modernized spelling: "Lughnasadh" is correct, as Marjorie has it. Irish can be complicated
ReplyDeleteThey're replacing the name because their customers are too dumb to pronounce it? Nice. Even if it was in jest, it's a poor one, and it's a reflection of how they run this bar. Ever see Bar Rescue? Why do the bars in that show hire bar consultants and rebrand their bars? Because they're failing. Not to mention Lunasa is a Santacon
ReplyDeleteHQ and frat boy and B&T haven from Thursday nights to the weekend. They just want to distance themselves from that and dupe people that this is a new bar when it is still run by the same staff and management. And they blame their customers. Nice. What was that adage again? You may take a ----- out of the neighborhood but you cannot take the neighborhood out of the -----. Thanks for stopping by.
So fake Irish bar is upset New Yorkers cant pronounce the name properly, too bad.
ReplyDeleteBTW grafton is worse and who (besides a cynical geezer)would name their establishment after a tourist trap street featuring an airport crystal shop and a bad sculpture of Molly Malone?