An outpost of Cutlets Sandwich Co. is coming soon to 99 Third Ave. between 12th Street and 13th Street.
The signage arrived here last week for the quick-serve sandwich maker specializing in chicken and eggplant cutlets ... this will be the third outpost for the growing company launched by Richard Zaro of Zaro's Family Bakery. (H/T Eater.)
Cutlets started as a delivery-only service, with the first shop arriving on Broadway near 20th Street this past December. However, they closed that spot to open in a larger space on West 35th Street ... there's also a Cutlets by McCarren Park.
So what makes Cutlets stand out? The deli is committed to serving a better-for-you sandwich, meaning they exclusively serve unprocessed proteins, free from antibiotics, hormones and added sugars. Sandwiches are topped with seasonal vegetables and built between meticulously sourced breads and spreads. For full transparency, a full sourcing list of local producers and farms is listed on Cutlets' website.
The new home of Via Della Pace looks to be shaping up at 87 E. Fourth St. between Second Avenue and the Bowery. (You can see the VDP-branded awning here, for starters.)
As we noted in January, the owners were on the CB3-SLA docket for a new liquor license for this space.
The 17-year-old Italian restaurant lost its home during the devastating fireon the southeast corner of Second Avenue and Seventh Street in December 2020.
The Lazy Llama Coffee Bar debuted an outpost in the First Park kiosk late last week.
Llama@thePark is open daily from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. ... (and directly across the street from its coffee shop at 72 E. First St. between First Avenue and Second Avenue).
Aside from coffee drinks, the kiosk here outside the F stop is serving a variety of sandwiches, wraps, burgers, fried chicken, salads and more...
Meanwhile, several applicants are no longer on tonight's docket... including two of particular interest.
One is Spiegel ... multiple tipsters told us at the start of the summer that the cafe is returning to its former home at 26 First Ave. at Second Street ...
Expect to see them another month as they apply for a new liquor license for the corner space. (They previously had a full liquor license until they closed at some point during the pandemic.)
Also no longer on tonight's agenda — Roberta's Pizza.
As previously reported, 15 Avenue A between Houston and Second Street is undergoing a vertical expansion.
The new retail tenant was expected to be a wine bar from Bushwick-based pizzeria Roberta's.
Chef-owner Carlo Mirarchi told Grub Street in September 2019 that they were going to open what he called Roberta's Wine Bar.
However, nothing more was ever mentioned about the project, and it was unknown if those plans were moving forward. Obviously so with the application for a new liquor license. (The retail space at 15 Avenue A was previously the Family Dental Center, which moved down to Essex Street in 2017.)
Roberta's got its start in Bushwick in 2008. As Eater noted, Roberta's had been on an expansion kick, with openings in several food halls, and adding two locations in Los Angeles and one in Williamsburg ... not to mention its frozen pizza business ... and burger joint.
Tonight's CB3-SLA committee meeting includes an applicant vying for 197 Second Ave. between 12th Street and 13th Street.
According to the public documents on the CB3 website, applicant Michael Dollaway is proposing an establishment called Aces Fine Food and Spirits. The configuration for the cocktail lounge-restaurant features 12 tables for 36 guests as well as a 22-seat bar.
Dollaway's bio posted with the questionnaire shows a background in management/ownership at several now-closed upscale spots, including Provocateur in the Meatpacking District and Lily Pond in East Hampton.
CB3's SLA committee meets tonight at the Public Hotel, 17th Floor, Sophia Room, 215 Chrystie St. between Houston and Stanton. The festivities start at 6:30.
It's one of those kinda-seems-like-yesterday moments. I recall Goggla emailing me with the news...
The place was closing anyway to make way for the 12-story apartment building on the lot... But people thought that they had the rest of the summer of 2011 to enjoy the bar... or at least go to it.
However, a DOH visit did them in on July 18, 2011 — 54 violation points and mentions of every known type of fly. (Filth flies! Flesh flies!) And apparently, owner Hank Penza said the hell with it. And closed.
For a time, the place was the greatest, strangest, dirtiest bar around the neighborhood.
Here's what the Timeshad to say about Mars Bar once ...
[I]n its prime it was perhaps the epitome of an East Village bar: menacing, dark and covered inside and out by graffiti, stickers and impromptu spray-painted artworks. Its forbidding restroom was an urban legend in and of itself.
It wasn't always that way ... per a different feature at the Times:
When the bar opened in 1984 ... the facade was gleaming. "We thought, 'Oh no, another sushi bar; there goes the neighborhood,'" said Jim Sizelove, who was part of the rowdy art scene called the Rivington School.
We can relive the bar here for a moment... in 2016, East Village-based filmmaker Jenny Woodward released an entertaining video short titled "Last Days of the Mars Bar," featuring interviews with Penza in the days leading up to the bar's closure.
Penza shares some colorful anecdotes (and perhaps tall tales), such as how the bar got its name and how the first art appeared on the bar's walls.
And Penza doesn't seem all that broken up about the end of days here.
"Fuck the bar. What am I, crazy? There's a beginning and an end. You hear? The Mars Bar will live forever and I'll die... I feel like there's a beginning and an end, and this is the end to another chapter in my life."
Here's a rather serene slice-of-Mars-Bar life showing a few people quietly sitting while David Bowie's "China Girl" plays on the jukebox. (Thanks Alex!) The video isn't dated ... it was uploaded in April 2012. It's aptly titled in part "Sweet Memories."
The corner storefronts where Mars Bar stood were eventually demolished in late 2011/early 2012 to make way for the residential building called Jupiter 21. The corner space now houses a TD Bank and Kollectiv, "an urban retreat center" that features an herbal pharmacy and spa.
A Ferrari gets a ticket on Seventh Street at Second Avenue... and the traffic enforcement agent told EVG contributor Derek Berg that this was his first time ticketing a Ferrari...
• Pre-sale tix are available for the 50th-anniversary screening of "Willy
Wonka & Chocolate Factory" at the Regal Union Square on Aug. 15 (Official site)
