Sunday, August 31, 2003

Mike Daisey

Mike Daisey his wife, and some friends Schnacked out the other night, fresh from their trip to Edinburgh. Thanks Mike.

NY Mag

We certainly want to thank NY Mag for including us in the 100 Cheap Places to Eat in NYC. It was a great help to us in "getting the word out." Here is just one example of some people who checked us out because of the article.

"Anyways, I'd picked up a copy of New York magazine at the airport, which had an article for "100 Great Meals under $25." One, Schnack, touted these tiny burgers that (a) definitely rival White Castle in terms of taste-for-the-size and (b) talked about homemade Orange Juliuses. When I hit Shan up with that bit of information, that was the clue-in for us to go.

It's down in Brooklyn, the corner of Union and Columbia (or very close to it).

Phenomenal food - we each ordered four burgers. Two of mine came with "Schnack sauce" (thousand island dressing with a lot of various spices thrown in, VERY good); we ordered the homemade onion rings and fries. The onion rings were lacking in batter, but that's what made them good. REALLY good.

We each had beer - Shan had one, I had two -- and that was enough to get us succinctly plowed and ready for bed."

Cooking in Brooklyn

The word from Delicious Pictures, the producers of Cooking in Brooklyn, is that the show will now air in Jan 2004, I'm guessing as a mid-season replacement. This should also give them (and Alan) plenty of time to get the word out about the show.

Thursday, August 28, 2003

A Party

We had a nice party tonight for a Schnackie Fan, Sue, who had 20 of her friends join us for an all-you-can-eat-and-drink Schnackie and Jever fest in her honor.

We are also now serving a Dentergems and Grapefruit "cocktail," a refreshing and tasty combination of wheat beer, fresh grapefruit juice, and sugar.

DJ Zebra Blood got his picture on the cover of... GO Brooklyn. Not exactly "Rolling Stone," but we hope he sends a copy to his mother.

Friday, August 22, 2003

Schnack @ Night was fun last night. Plenty of old friends dropped by, as well as some new ones. We kept the kitchen open until 1:15am and the drinks poured until 2am.

Tuesday, August 19, 2003

Thanks Patty

Happy to be mentioned in Patty's bio. Patty is part of Picky Tooth and writes (in part) about herself, "she is currently infatuated with Jubilat kielbasa, onion rings from Red Hook's Schnack."

Monday, August 18, 2003

Turn Off Your Cell Phone

If the lights going out and having a banner weekend wasn't enough to keep us excited, we got a special surprise during Sunday primetime. Chris, who had recently shot an episode of Sex in the City, started getting phone calls. It turns out the episode aired! My online TV guide lists it as "No Shoes, No Service," but HBO's web site lists it as, "Episode 83, 'A Woman's Right to Shoes.' " His character has a restaurant interaction with "Samantha."

Late Sunday, Chris's buddy, Pablo Schreiber (better known as HBO The Wire's Nick Sobotka), and some other friends stopped by to help Chris celebrate.

Friday, August 15, 2003

Wow

Where were you when the lights when out? We were Schnacking. We pulled the tables out on the sidewalk and we cooked until the sun went down. We didn't cook that many meals, but we certainly helped some people who otherwise didn't have a place to eat. Interesting as well, a number of families used Schnack as their emergency meeting place. The griddle wasn't working but we cranked up the charbroiler and turned out the most amazing Schnackies!

Today, Friday, we got power back early and we didn't lose too much "stuff." We did lose some fish and ice cream. I hit the food warehouse early, which got its power back at 4:30am.  I found them stocked to the gills and mostly empty of people, so I loaded up on everything we would need for the weekend. It turns out that was a good thing  With many people taking the day off, Friday was one of our busiest days ever.

Pacifico Bar

I can confirm that Pacifico Bar at 269 Pacific Street (at the Corner of Smith and Pacific, Brooklyn), will be opening this Wednesday the 20th for dinner, and opening for lunch starting Saturday the 23rd. I stopped by to check on their progress and it's looking really HOT!

Tuesday, August 12, 2003

Wow, 8 days or so since the last entry. 8 busy Schnack filled days.

How fast can you eat a Schnackie? How about 8 of them? Some of the folks who are working on the rebuild of the Manhattan Bridge bought 170 Schnackies the other day and had a contest to find out. The winner ate 8 of them in 6 minutes.

Zack, our single best customer (based on a 2 or 3 times a day Schnack habit), who has departed for a job in Maine, after eating dinner and having a few drinks managed to do 7 in 6 minutes as well.

The Red Rail has closed, although rumored to be reopening as a bar; we picked up a small amount of brunch business from them (we think).

Pacifico Bar, a new venture on 269 Pacific Street, will be opening in the next week or so. Think Mexican food and drink!

Tuesday, August 05, 2003

It would be an understatement to say that the last 3 weeks at Schnack have been busy. There are a lot of things I have wanted to mention here but haven't had the time.

1) Our friends who traveled into Canada reported back saying French Fries there are served with a beef gravy. We will probably try a pork gravy based on the "jus" from our garlic roasted pork sometime this fall.

2) Mike had an urge the other night and brought in a bunch of pork ribs which he braised and then almond crusted; they sold almost as well as the blueberry hotcakes we have been running for breakfast!

3) Many thanks to the Schnack softball team, although they didn't win their playoffs they were all big winners in our book for both their love and devotion to the game and of course to post-game PBR's.

4) We have catered a few parties in the last few weeks and that has gone well; special thanks to David and Company who we did our first catering job for.

5) So many other people I'd like to thank; the most important are those who have come in when we are really busy and who have been happy and relaxed enough to sit back, enjoy a cold beer or milkshake, and wait for all of their food to be cooked to order!

6) Also a big Schnack thank you to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle which ran a full-sized broadsheet page on us, me and my partners, and some of their various Brooklyn eateries we are associated with.

7) Huge thanks to the owners and staff at Bagels by the Park (323 Smith) who have been so supportive in the last year of everything we have done!

Saturday, August 02, 2003

We had a discussion today about the financial requirements for building a second location; we will have to raise some $$, but it looks like we are well on our way to gaining a second Schnack location. Also, potentially on the drawing board is some type of truck that can sell Schnack at street fairs and do catering at birthday parties and such!

Friday, August 01, 2003

Another Thursday has gone by and Schnack at Night is doing well. Again, about 30 or 40 people stopped by between 11pm and 2am. The music was rocking. Special thanks to DJ Zebra Blood who left the gig at Schnack to go directly to another gig!