Saturday Night Cheeseburger At The Cardinal

Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night Cheeseburger! Starring The Cardinal and featuring the Ready for Prime Beef Player, Marty Wombacher. And now please welcome tonight’s host, The Cardinal!

Night is falling on Manhattan as we head down Broadway to east 4th street.

I'm drinking a beer on the way hidden inside my patented Vitamin Water bottle beer disguise. You'll never get me, coppers!

There's a lot of people out tonight, I hope I can score a seat at the bar at The Cardinal.

Fanfare alert!

Okay, here we are, let's go see if we can score a seat at the bar.

Wow, it's a small bar and it's all filled up.

The tables are all filled up too. I'm starvin' like Marvin over here and don't feel like searching for somewhere else to get a cheeseburger.

Wait a second, there's outside seating, maybe I can get a table out there.

There's one lone table and I was told I could take it, so that's what I did.

And before you know it, pretty and friendly waitress Alex serves up a beer. I got a bottle of Left Hand Milk Stout, that's right, they don't serve Budweiser here.

Here's a shot of my table complete with a bottle of water and beer, who could ask for anything more...well a cheeseburger would complete the picture, but we must have patience.

A view of the other outside diners from my vantage point.

Okay, I've placed my dinner order and now...

Sit back, relax and watch the world go by. I don't eat at outside tables much, but I have to admit, it's kind of nice sitting out here tonight.

And before you know it, the first course has arrived! Deviled eggs. They look great!

They're creamy and topped with a hunk of bacon, a wonderful appetizer!

And here's the main course, the cheeseburger! It comes with a pickle and homemade potato chips.

A very delicious burger! And the chips and pickle were good too.

And now it's history.

I paid Alex at the bar and she gives a wave and a gorgeous smile goodbye. It was a great meal and evening at The Cardinal!

My Meal
There’s only one burger on the menu at Cardinal, but it’s a winner. It’s a skillet cooked burger topped with grilled onions, bibb lettuce and a dabble of homemade barbecue sauce. The burger is housed in a bakery fresh potato roll. It recently made Time Out New York’s best burger list and I can see why. It comes with a pickle and homemade potato chips. For an appetizer I got the deviled eggs and they come three to a serving topped with a bit of bacon and slightly seasoned. A tasty treat indeed.

Other entrees on the menu include: Smothered and Fried Pork Chops with Red Eye Gravy; Fried Chicken, Catfish and the BBQ Plate which is a combination plate featuring: ribs, pulled pork, brisket and hot links. All the entrees come with your choice of two sides including: a Pickle Plate; Fried Green Tomatoes; Deviled Eggs and Fried Okra. You can get wine by the glass and they have eight beers to choose from including: Left Hand Milk Stout, Narragansett, Full Sail IPA  and Ommegang Witt. And all these years I thought Ommegang Witt was an Boswesnian comedy troupe, oh well, you learn something new every day!

Cheeseburger Rating
Three and a half Wimpy’s, easy to see why it’s at the top of the Time Out New York best burger list!
The Cardinal
234 E. 4th St. (Near Ave. B)
212-995-8600

Further Reading: EV Grieve, Paper & String and East Village Eats.

Fly on little wing,
Yeah yeah yeah, little wing.

Surprise link, click on it...I dare you!

Happy Hour At Teneleven

Okay, it’s Friday and time for the weekly Happy Hour here at TWM. This week’s Happy Hour destination was suggested by frequent TWM guest star, Shawn. He suggested a bar to meet at that I’ve never been to called, Teneleven in the East Village which has a seven hour Happy Hour, from 2PM to 9PM, sounds good to me!

And here we are at Teneleven, there's no sign out front, just look for the windows and the red door to the right. (I have to confess, this isn't my photo, the first few photos I took got deleted somehow, I found this on Grub Street.)

It's still early afternoon when I arrive, so there's plenty of room at the bar. Carrie was bartending, but was really tired as she had closed the bar (it's open till 4 AM) and had to reopen it at 2 PM, so she didn't feel like having her picture taken and I can't blame her. There was a pretty and friendly woman named Malika who let me take her photo, but as I said above, somehow the first few photos got deleted, so hopefully I'll run into Malika again in my travels and you'll get to see her! Okay, on with the tour of the bar.

There's a nice display of lit up bottles behind the bar.

And a decent selection of beers are on tap at Teneleven.

Here's Mikey and Andrew who are regulars here at the bar.

A long shot of the silver-topped, wooden railing bar.

Peanuts!

A genuine Broadway Joe Namath jersey hangs on the blue bricked walls in the bar.

Framed art hangs on the red wall opposite the bar.

Malika (who's picture got deleted) pointed out this painting behind the bar. It's by artist James Quinn, who is the nephew of the owner of the bar.

And another James Quinn original hangs in the center of the wall behind the bar.

There's a lot of cool stuff here in Teneleven, but nothing more cool than this. Bartender Carrie told me that this is a picture of an autograph by Davy Jones of the Monkees on the ass of the owner of the bar, Evelyn. Evelyn got Davy to autograph her ass and then had it permanently tattooed there and this is a photo of it. Very cheeky!

At the far end of the bar is an entrance to another room in the back.

There's a small little bar back here.

There's tables and chairs to sit at.

Here's a shot from the back of the room and you can see there's a small stage at the front of the space.

And as night settles in, the candles come out on the wooden railing opposite the bar, nice!

And some of the TWM Happy Hour crew arrive and settle in at the bar.

It's kind of hard to tell who's who, with my unflashed photos...

So we all posed for one group photo taken by Carrie. From left: Dave, Shawn, Elie, THE NOTORIOUS L.I.B.E.R.A.T.I.O.N., Yours Fooly, The Duncester and Alvah.

And as the Happy Hour came to a close, I took one glance out the windows...

And hit the road and was homeward bound. Thanks to everybody who showed up, it was a great Happy Hour at TWM!

Teneleven
171 Ave. C (Near 11th St.)
Happy Hour: 2 PM to 9 PM with three buck beers and various drink specials.

Further Reading: New York Magazine, New York On Tap and New York Hard Times.

Sirens crying,
Gotta grab the next thing back to our town,
Before the whole thing crumbles to the ground.

Surprise link, click on it...I dare you!

Astor Place Hairstylists

The other week, my pals over at The Half Empty Glass put up a post about a Kickstarter project that’s a documentary of an old school barber shop in Manhattan called Astor Place Hairstylists, a family run business in the city since 1947. The documentary is being made by filmmaker, Karen Gehres, check out the clip below.

Karen originally set a goal of five thousand dollars and she met that, so the project is going to be funded tomorrow. Her new goal is ten thousand bucks and if you liked the clip, maybe you’ll want to contribute to help this documentary see the light of day. The deadline for the project is tomorrow morning, so stop by and cough up a few bucks if you can.

I had a bad experience with a barber a couple weeks ago, and after seeing Karen’s video, I thought I’d give Astor Place Hairstylists a shot and see if they’d let me blog about getting a haircut there, let’s go see!

And here we are at the legendary barber shop on Astor Place, let's go down and take a look.

Through the doors...

And there's the front desk. They speak a little english, so I think we're in luck here.

Here's John and Fifi at the front desk and they said I was more than welcome to take a tour and some photos before my haircut. It's very friendly in here, I like it already!

As you can see, this is one large old school barber shop.

Every barber customizes their own hair cutting station. This one reminds of the line in the Beatles song, Penny Lane: Penny Lane there is a barber showing photographs, of every head he's had the pleasure to have known.

There's lots of barbers on duty in here, walk-ins are welcome and there's never a long wait to get your hair cut.

A little off the top, here's someone getting a trim.

Purple mane, purple mane!

Some tools of the trade hanging around the shop.

Here's a two caricatures of a couple of the barbers and some other pictures on the wall.

And speaking of pictures, there's a whole wall dedicated to celebrities who have gotten their locks sheared in here. Let's take a look.

Kevin Bacon in the house, six degrees of sep-hair-ation. Oof, sorry about that!

Comedian and actor Chris Rock poses for the Astor Hair camera.

John Malkovic went the full route and had it all taken off at Astor Hair.

Five in one: LL Cool J, Susan Sarandon, Macauly Culkin, Mila Kunis and Spike Lee, all are regulars at Astor Hair.

The barber shop is also known for specialty cuts that include getting the logo of your favorite sports team cut out of your locks on your noggin'.

Okay, it's time for me to get sheared. Here's my stylist, Mercedes, a very pretty and friendly woman who welcomed me and was happy to have her photo taken.

Here's her name plate on her mirror and an accidental obligatory mirror shot of myself and Mercedes.

Mercedes took a shot of me and my unruly locks, time to get down to shear business.

Here's a mirror shot of Mercedes in action, a great barber and we had a nice conversation as she trimmed my locks.

Check it out, a nice summer haircut by Mercedes!

She also took a shot from the back. Wow, lots of gray there, can you say, Grecian Formula? I knew that you could!

And there's candy at the register, just like the old days!

And on the way out is a poster for Karen's documentary, don't forget to stop by and contribute if you can, after spending a day in here, I guarantee this will be one great documentary on an old-school, family-owned barber shop.

Astor Place Hairstylists
2 Astor Pl. (Near Broadway)
212-475-9854

Okay, I’m off looking for a job tomorrow and Thursday, but check back in for the weekly happy hour on Friday and there’s going to be a Chillmaster post on Saturday, so stay tuned!

Further Reading: EV Grieve, Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York and New York Magazine.

Gonna tell your momma, you better do what she said,
Get to that barbershop and get that hair cut off your head.

Surprise link, click on it...I dare you!

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Bonus Link For Mykola Mick Dementiuk's Latest Novel!

There's an excerpt for TWM commenter Mykola Mick Dementiuk's latest novel, "Times Square Queer," at the Gay/Lesbian Fiction Excerpts blog, check it out here: Times Square Queer excerpt.

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Bonus Barber Art From Jaws!

Jaws the Cabbie sent in this piece of hair-raising art to go along with today's barber post. Thanks, Jaws!