so many potatoes.
— Empire Biscuit (@empirebiscuit) April 27, 2016
@StellaKramer yes, soon. just tinkering. :)
— Empire Biscuit (@empirebiscuit) March 7, 2016
Empire Biscuit will be closed until March to retool for the coming apocalypse and make pastries.
— Empire Biscuit (@empirebiscuit) January 31, 2016
Closing for two days felt like a year. Hello, EVill.
— Empire Biscuit (@empirebiscuit) January 9, 2016
How long have you been waiting to read a press release combining the worlds of stand-up comedy AND biscuits? Because your wait is over. The inaugural Empire Biscuit Comedy Festival (EBCF) will be held in the Lower East Side biscuit restaurant Empire Biscuit (Gothamist’s Top 10 24-Hour Restaurants In NYC), 198 Avenue A between 12th and 13th, on Sunday, August 2 to Tuesday, August 4, 2015.
This year’s performers include Mike Lawrence, Nick Vatterott, Sasheer Zamata, Christian Finnegan, Hasan Minhaj and more. The 2015 festival will be held entirely at Empire Biscuit, which will host 9 shows with over 50 of New York City’s top comedians who have appeared on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon, @midnight, CONAN, Comedy Central’s The Half Hour, Last Comic Standing, and more. In addition audience members will receive a free premium biscuit and a beverage with their ticket purchase — $14 online or $16 at the door. A festival pass is also available for $50, which includes admittance to all of the festival shows with a biscuit and beverage per night.
“The Empire Biscuit Comedy Festival is unique in that it features performances by stand-up comedians who normally perform in theaters and comedy clubs across the country, in an intimate 30-seat biscuit shop,” says festival co-producer Tovah Silbermann (Forever Dog Productions). “Also, hosting a festival in a biscuit shop is really funny.” EBCF is also co-produced by stand-up comedians Andrew Tavin (The Peoples Improv Theater) and Brandon Scott Wolf (freelance contributor to SNL's Weekend Update, DateBrandonScottWolf.com).
"As far as National Biscuit Day festivities, we'd planned to serve everything on the menu for $1 for 1 hour on Wednesday night. Party, right? (We'lll probably be having a cleaning party instead.) Maybe we'll go ahead with it one day next week, but for now we've got a lot of nonsense to deal with."
Hey everyone....we're 24 hours today! #lardlove
— Empire Biscuit (@empirebiscuit) November 18, 2013
For the fledgling team taking their first foray into restaurant ownership, a single-product restaurant made sense. Price — who cut his teeth at the famous Magnolia Grill in Durham, N.C. — and Tsuna, a Memphis, Tenn., native, both knew the magic of the Southern biscuit and how well it would resonate with New York City’s consumers.
So the pair surrounded themselves with a team of advisers to make up for the skills they lacked, including design and real estate. To raise funds, Price and Tsuna created a crowd funded Kickstarter campaign page with a video of the enigmatic pair describing the concept.
“Making the video required us to think really hard about articulating our core values — creating high quality food and being part of this great neighborhood,” Tsuna notes.
To build buzz, Price and Tsuna hosted tastings out of Price’s apartment.
Once they secured their storefront, “People around us would come in to chat. We would spend hours everyday chatting with people. We love Avenue A because it’s so neighborly,” says Tsuna, who recently moved into an apartment down the block from the shop.
After dropping a tiny piece of biscuit, Max Hatfield-Biondo, 28, an engineer from Soho, took a moment to think before declaring, “I’m going to eat that off the floor.”
At the front wooden counter, a lanky 20-something in a baseball cap is apologizing to his less-than-pleased girlfriend for dropping her biscuit on the floor. She pouts, taking the slightly bruised biscuit from his hands — and eats it anyway.
Co-owner Yonadav Tsuna says that they've bulked up their production, brought on a professional baker to streamline the biscuit-making, and smoothed out the service to get those biscuit sandwiches out as fast as possible.
Empire Biscuit is hiring experienced line and prep cooks
We're looking for experienced line cooks and prep cooks. All shifts are available. You'll work with familiar and exotic, high quality, seasonal ingredients. You'll have the opportunity to smoke, pickle, and cure. You'll make sweet and savory jams and jellies. We're looking for precision, speed and cleanliness. Please see our menu at empirebiscuit.com. If you don't dig it, don't apply. We're a new restaurant. If you kick ass, you'll grow with us. Please send your resume. We hope to hear from you.
"We had some people here Saturday night crying outside," he said, when asked about the necessary closure late last week. Tsuna and his business partner Karl Wilder were inundated with so much early business that they were forced to lock up and hire additional staff in order to keep up with demand. "We're doing five times to ten times more than we thought we would," Tsuna said with a nervous grin.
The flaky Southern favorites will be topped with a selection of gourmet spreads, including goat cheese and black pepper butter, pineapple and thyme jam and pumpkin pie spread, owners Jonathan Price and Yonadav Tsuna said.
Besides potential construction delays, the major risks for our restaurant are post-opening. We have a strong team in place, a carefully developed concept and menu, a great location and space, and a nuanced financial model. So the basic challenges/risks that remain are controlling food cost and labor once we're up and running.