the cupboard was bare- the kitchen's pretty empty
and the dining room's not far behind
There’s been so much activity at New Feast that we haven’t brought you up to speed on Old Feast in a while. Turns out it’s empty, and while I hope some other pleasant neighborhood restaurant moves in, I can’t say that it looks promising, especially now. We had a few people stroll through: a sweet guy who wanted to open an Iraqi bakery. He and his uncle came a couple of times, discussed the matter animatedly, and left seeming bullish, but after a trip downtown, they changed their tune from “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” to “Ain’t No Way,” or possibly “I Can’t Believe I’m Losing You.” It seems that a change of use (restaurant to bakery) would require meeting new code. Remember how we had to get a 1500-gallon grease trap in the new space even though our old grease trap was 20 gallons? Well, there were a few issues like that. The front doors we put into the old location five years ago, for example, are suddenly too close together for the fire department (I smell Dino). I’m sure there’s a host of other issues as well, but they were enough to keep our young entrepreneur at bay. Likewise with the Italian restaurant. Ditto the mysterious fellow who was obviously interested in opening a restaurant, but was pretty tight-lipped about the whole thing, and by the end of his visit with my overly enthusiastic landlord, who stands to lose his hanging-out-in-California money, Mystery Restaurant Man disappeared into the ether. Whatever it ends up being, I hope I can go there on my night off, but I have a feeling it will be a nail salon or something. Not that I couldn’t have a mani/pedi on my night off.