The signage has arrived for Ikinari Steak at 90 E. 10th St. between Third Avenue and Fourth Avenue...
This will be the first U.S. location (there are more than 100 worldwide) for the popular Tokyo-based restaurant. The concept: Diners stand and basically eat really quickly.
Here's more on Ikinari Steak and its owner, restaurateur Kunio Ichinose, via The Financial Times:
Customers stand at 1m-high tables and order the precise number of grammes desired. The cost — Y5/gramme for rib-eye to more than Y10/g for sirloin — gives customers what Mr Ichinose claims is a vital sense of control.
Everything is calculated for speed of throughput and optimal use of limited ground floor spaces in key city locations. The height of the tables, Mr. Ichinose demonstrates by jumping up and miming, has been calibrated so that diners are unlikely to put their knives and forks down between mouthfuls. He pulls out a smartphone, which funnels him real-time CCTV footage of all the restaurants, to show this happening.
Press materials for this first U.S. location note the following:
The idea behind Ikinari Steak is to serve “super thick” high quality meats quickly and economically, therefore people stand while consuming their steaks. It’s a fun, interactive, communal, and brand new experience for New Yorkers! This is what is called "J-Steak" (Japanese style steak), a phrase coined by, and being introduced to New York by Ikinari Steak. Three cuts of Choice Beef are offered at a minimum of 12 or 14 oz.: ribeye, sirloin, and filet, cooked on an open-fire, served with corn, and presented sizzling on a cast-iron platter. Guests can choose to add more to their steaks at an extra cost. Therefore, any tenth of an ounce increment above the minimum is possible, as all steaks are cut to order. Lunch will offer a set meal of a 14oz Chuck Eye Steak with salad, soup and rice for $18.
The restaurant, designed by Idea+ Corporation in Tokyo, Japan, and Goodspeed Architects in NYC, has 40 standing stations and 10 table seats. The same loyalty program, so popular in Japan, will also be offered in New York. It's a "beef mileage card" app that allows diners to track how many pounds of steak they’ve eaten and ranks them against other regulars.
The original opening date was November... so not sure what the new date is. Soon?
This address was home to the steakhouse Prime & Beyond until last summer.
Previously on EV Grieve:
On 10th Street, Prime & Beyond has closed; popular Japanese steakhouse coming
29 comments:
Also, it's much easier to perform the heimlich maneuver if you're already standing.
Enough with the Asian restaurants! Is that all people eat in/around the East Village in 2017? ZZZZZZZZZZZ
So we are to suppose to eat cows the way cows eat?
Pass.
Big YAWNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN.
Remember your manners, he'll be watching you eat...
How totally unappealing.
Steaks are served with corn? What?!
Next up...troughs.
I remember standing at a table eating quickly and rushed out the door it was the mess hall at Ft Bragg...now all they need is Sgt Marley screaming hurry up you maggot.I thought dining out was to be pleasurable?
Wait, I am supposed to stand while sawing away at a piece of meat and then inhale it without so much as putting down my knife and fork and then be expected to pay for the experience? Who comes up with shit like this? Yet another place designed not to appeal to adults, who like to sit, avoid, and chat. Take your steak and shove it, Ichinose.
Ack. Sit, savor, not avoid!
will we be timed?
There was a time that nice things in life were done sitting done relaxing, today people carry their coffee on the streets, talk on the phone while on the street and multi-tasking, now eating is something to be done without the frivolity of a seat.
But think of the fun. Remember when you were 3, and dribbled and sloshed all over the place? And, of boy, the food fights? Armed, standing, and ready!
Anyway, I think I'll pass. I had my fun already at the limited seating at Superiority.
Well, I won't stand for it!
The should have called it Empire Brisket.
I am going to pass. I tried that new Sugarfish sushi place on 20th, which uses a similar model: high quality food but in a no frills, get-in-get-out setting. I thought I would be okay without the frills. But I have to say while I enjoyed the taste of the vittles, the whole fast-food/assembly-line ethos compromised my overall dining experience, bigly.
"Novelty? YAWN"
"Change? BOO"
- every comment that has ever been written on this blog
<"Novelty? YAWN"
"Change? BOO"
- every comment that has ever been written on this blog>
And when they close in 6 months, will you then post and be so snarky? See the recent EV Grieve thread on "Empire Biscuit".
So this place serves prime cuts of steak which is far from cheap and they want you to gobble it down pronto while standing up? Since they have studied how high the counters must be for this *eating experience*, I wonder if they did a study on how long it takes to chew per bite? Are you timed?
Anyway, what an obnoxious concept. So much for a leisurely pricey meal with comfortable seating....I think I will pass.
I have indigestion already.
If the steaks are good AND inexpensive, I might throw it into piece of foil, take it home, add some French fries and light a romantic candle.
This is very Japanese. It is not uncommon for them to work a 70 hour week. Oh, and they have a rather disproportionately high suicide rate.
"Customers stand at 1m-high tables and order the precise number of grammes desired..."
Already this sounds like work. And who wrote this, they guy that used to write the VHS instruction manuals?
Meat'n'Greet
Talk about cattle class WTF Pens and straw for a Hotel next
I have an idea. Instead of any seating, just provide a toilet and usb port and you will have every millennial claiming it's the greatest. They can take care of everything during one trip to this barnyard.
Grill yer own steak.
If you are too busy to sit down and enjoy your slightly over-priced steak dinner, you are too busy.
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