i’m hoping it’s not true, or hoping for a reprieve, or hoping that someone gets some sense, or something.
mchale’s, a perfectly wonderful open secret of a bar, is set to close soon, according to the new york times, which by the way will make you pay $3.95 to read about it.
but trust me. it says that the building was sold and the new owners are kicking them out. which really ticks me off.
so kirk and i are going to go this afternoon to get a burger. we tried to go on monday, but they didn’t open until four because of labor day, so we ended up going to becco, which was wonderful as always but not a mchale’s burger by any stretch of the imagination.
it’s a gargantuan eleven-ounce burger, with quality meat, perfectly prepared. or, to use that newfangled terminology, it’s ginormous. it’s also cheap as hell–you can’t spend more than eight bucks no matter what toppings you get, really. and the bare bones burger with fries is probably like six bucks or close to it.
and the big secret is that they will split a burger on two plates, so that each person gets half a burger on a full bun with a full complement of toppings and fries, for only a dollar more. so that’s two people eating the best burgers in new york for less than ten bucks. kirk and i used to sit at the bar and split burgers now and then, although more often than not we’d say we’d go and split a burger, and then get our own burgers when we got there.
i think this afternoon, though, i won’t be splitting a burger. even though i had mcdonalds grease for lunch. i know. but my nine-months-pregnant boss wanted mcdonalds for lunch, and who am i to say no to that?
but i digress. imagine that.
there are precious damn few places left in new york for new yorkers, what with the whole damn city turning into disney world. and this was one of them. and the thing is, businesses and people alike are being priced out of the city. mchale’s. cbgb’s. my friend mark’s restaurant a stray cafe, a few years ago, along with my friend mark. both no longer in manhattan, and the best restaurant in the west village now a shoe shop for meat-packing-district wannabe overflow people.
it’s a damn shame that working class people can’t afford to live where they work. and that businesses with goods in their price range are forced to close. i think i’m voting for anthony weiner for mayor in next tuesday’s primary, because he’s making sense about this very subject.
and i know that if they couldn’t save cbgb’s, for god’s sake, that mchale’s is probably a sure goner. but that doesn’t mean that i’ll like it.
and it doesn’t mean that i won’t be clogging my arteries at mchale’s as often as possible until i can’t anymore. i have several friends who are mchale’s addicts like me,and i’m going to tell them about the closing one at a time, spaced out over a few days, so that they can be outraged and demand that we go have a burger for lunch right then.
sequentially and all.
damn rich building-closing-bloodsucking bastards.
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of course, the day would not be complete without the clip that pissed me off today
