Kevin White

Infamous low-cost Chinatown bus service Fung Wah was set to terrorize roads once again this year, after the Feds shut them down in 2013 for being an "imminent hazard" and likely to cause "serious injury or death." But it seems their duct-taped bus fleet won't be careening up to Boston anytime soon, if ever—the company's owner has informed the city that he's not planning on relaunching the service. [ more › ]

Honest Boy Fruit Stand was a SoHo fixture for over three decades, feeding the mass of humanity that passed through on a daily basis. But it closed at the end of last year with barely a whimper. Its lifeless bones remained as testament to its significance in the neighborhood, even if littered with empty bottles and […]

Brooks Headley opened Superiority Burger last night, officially unleashing the veggie burger apocalypse on New York City. Eater critics Robert Sietsema and Ryan Sutton, along with burger columnist Nick Solares, stopped by and somehow managed to make it out alive. Here’s what they thought.

Robert Sietsema: Punk Rock Fast Food Hits the East Village Like a Buzzsaw

A light rain had begun to fall when word spread like a hallucinogenic gas that Superiority Burger had finally opened on East 9th Street just off of Tompkins Square. I should explain, in case you've been hiding under a mushroom the last few months, that Superiority is the fast food project of Brooks Headley, punk rock drummer, cookbook author, and former executive pastry chef at Del Posto. The burger in particular, and to a lesser extent the broccoli salad, have been on the drawing board for over two years, having enlivened countless events both public and private, from the Choice Eats Festival to annual charity cotillions at Housing Works to Bon Appetit and Lucky Peach parties.

I arrived by bike from Bushwick to find a knot of people milling around in a cone of light issuing from the space. It was not the kind of crowd that likes to line up. Customers were sitting on the nearby stoops and standing up, waiting for their orders or munching happily on vegetarian hamburgers. Inside, the vibe was laid back in the white-tiled front room. The six seats arrayed along the walls were all taken, each with a desk top that hinged upward and then penned you in like an adult high chair. On the walls, a photo of the Shaggs — a legendary all-sisters garage rock band that were famously tone deaf; an old-fashioned menu board, letters askew, listing the six offerings; and a White Castle advertising placard circa 1960, assuring you it's okay to eat burgers for breakfast.

The burger is unqualifiedly delicious

Pointedly, the entire menu is vegetarian. As the menu board excitedly proclaims, throwing punctuation to the winds, "Everything is vegetarian a lot is accidentally vegan just ask!" The namesake burger ($6) is quite a different animal than the one that first appeared on the scene two years ago. The present patty looks just like beef and has a nutty and grainy texture and savor. The bun is squishy and the toppings are limited to mustard and dill pickles, making it more Whataburger than White Castle. It is unqualifiedly delicious.

Switching gears, the "burnt broccoli salad" ($8) might be mistaken for Thai food, buoying slices of bright red bird chile and fronds of cilantro. "Hey, this is spicy," a fellow diner intoned with appreciation, or maybe she was complaining. To my taste, the best thing on the menu is the sloppy joe ($7), a dish common 30 years ago but now so discredited I can't think of anyone else serving it. This version is red and slightly sweet, flavored with bell peppers and flecked with tofu and strips of what might be tempeh. There's a hint of cumin in the spicing.

The last and perhaps least exciting selection was a burrito labeled a "hippy wrap." It harkens back to the days, circa 1970, when vegetarian cooking was all brown rice and steamed veggies, and flavoring was limited to onions and a light touch of curry powder — before we realized that real Indian cooking is virtually all spices. The hippy burrito ain't bad, man, it's just not as exciting as the other selections.

Superiority Burger is the latest installment in the field of fashion-forward fast food. Headley's entry outflanks the Shake Shack burger and Fuku chicken sandwich ethically by being vegetarian and probably less calorific; it also incorporates a touch of whimsy the others lack. As one friend pointed out, "This food is ugly!" Like a Sex Pistols song, it's all sharp edges and dissonance, but you can't help going away humming it.

P.S. None of the foregoing applies to the vanilla labne gelato and strawberry sorbet. These are the work of a master pastry chef, and as good as you've ever tasted in your life.

Top: vegetarian and vegan superiority burgers. Bottom: patty close up and sloppy Joe.

Ryan Sutton: This Veggie Burger Is Proof That Fast Food Burgers Don't Need Meat

In our chic era of vegetable-heavy cooking, produce, while often seasoned with succulent bits of meat or fish, is still supposed to taste like actual produce. A cauliflower steak is meant to taste like cauliflower, not steak, and it's meant to taste good. It's a kick-ass culinary ethos that has convinced certain refined omnivores to eat more plants, and to appreciate vegetables for what they are, as opposed to what they aren't. And this is all what makes Superiority Burger, which opened in Manhattan's East Village last night, such an intensely interesting outlier. The venue's veggie burger doesn't taste like veggies. It tastes like a burger. And based on visit just hours after opening, it tastes pretty darn great.

Superiority's space, manned by Brooks Headley, Del Posto's recently departed pastry chef, is small; culinary historians will recall it as the original home of Amanda Cohen's Dirt Candy. Here, Cohen sold broccoli hot dogs that actually tasted like real hot dogs. The history of fake meat on East 9th street is STRONG.

The menu is small too. No fries are offered, just a broccoli salad, a wrap, a vegetarian Sloppy Joe, and the burger.

I won't deign to opine on whether Superiority is the best vegetarian burger out there, as such comestibles aren't regularly part of my critical or civilian diet the way caviar, foie gras, prime rib, carnitas tacos, lamb shank, pork trotters, nduja, or tripe are. So I won't compare it to the heralded veggie burgers at Hillstone, Candle Cafe, Bareburger, and elsewhere. But here's what I will say, from the perspective of someone who ate a bit too much fast food while growing up on Long Island: The Superiority Burger is a more refined and more delicious substitute for the McDonald's quarter pounder.

Think of it this way: Just as you'd never throw your hands up in the air and exclaim, wow, these McDonald's chicken McNuggets really do taste like chicken, you wouldn't say that the chain's burgers taste like beef, at least not for more than a second or so. But you would say a McDonald's burger tastes good (maybe), because you're eating what's likely a focus group-tested and scientifically engineered combination of fat, protein, salt, sugar, and carbohydrates.

This veggie burger is about mouthfeel and umami and letting the zip and zang of the condiments shine

And so when you eat a Superiority burger, you get all of those gorgeous sensations, except you're eating something concocted by a world-class chef. The patty — which a secretive cashier tells me is made from grains, beans, and a bit of tofu — has a gorgeous char evocative of Shake Shack's griddled bovine specimen. On the inside, the faux-beef is super soft, like a warm French terrine minus the pork and lard. Cool pickles add acidity while warm tomatoes add sweetness. The potato bun boasts just the right amount of squish. And the patty itself packs a neutral taste, with malty, salty, slightly peppery overtones. This veggie burger isn't an essay in the intrinsic beauty of vegetables, it's about mouthfeel and umami and letting the zip and zang of the condiments shine. More importantly: You don't feel like garbage after you eat it. You feel kind of good, in fact. It simultaneously tastes like fast food and real food. And not a single animal had to die to create it. The only gustatory pleasure you sacrifice with this meatless creation is that nano-second of beefiness, after which your McDonald's burger essentially turns into a greasy mass of textured salt protein. I know this is true because I had a quarter pounder with cheese after my Superiority Burger, and it made me want to yak.

So to repeat: I'm not saying that Superiority Burger is better than other veggie burgers; I'm saying it's better than most real fast food hamburgers – ambitious and delicious outliers like Shack Shack notwithstanding. This is no small matter. Imagine if chain restaurants sold Superiority burgers instead of ones made from craptacular commodity beef? Imagine all the cattle that wouldn't have to be slaughtered. Imagine how much smaller a carbon footprint Big Food would have. Imagine how many more people would develop a deeper appreciation for meat-free, plant-based nourishment.

Falling in love with vegetables, for certain urban omnivores, is a product of eating out at reasonably expensive restaurants that serve butter-drenched mushrooms (which cost more by the pound than dry-aged steak) and Michelin Bras-style gargouillou salads (whose components are plucked from bespoke farms). But if you want to convince Americans as a whole to eat more vegetables, you serve them vegetables that (kind of) taste like meat. You serve them something affordable. You serve them Superiority burgers. Or broccoli hot dogs. Or vegetarian Sloppy Joe sandwiches (which, in the case of this establishment, simply uses firm soy protein to carry the flavor of cumin). The truth of the matter is that when you're eating most fast food burgers or frankfurters, you're not really tasting the meat, you're tasting everything else that covers up the meat. So in many cases, you might as well just skip the meat.

Oh, and as a reward for eating your vegetables at Superiority, you get a cup of labne ice cream with strawberry sorbet for $4, a creamsicle in a cup by one of our great pastry chefs. It's a good deal. It's a strong buy.

Brooks Headley.

Nick Solares: Never Mind the Bollocks — Here's Superiority Burger.

"Eastside Jimmy and Southside Sue both say they needed something new"

It’s 7:20 pm on the bustling opening night at Superiority Burger. Gates of the West by The Clash pulses over the sound system while a cadre of cooks wearing prim white paper hats form a phalanx across the kitchen; a kid in Black Flag t-shirt is scarfing down a veggie burger as hungry art lovers from a gallery show across the street spill into the space. Brooks Headley is sweeping the floor. Superiority Burger’s spartan website states that the restaurant's core value is humility. That certainly seems to be so.

There are all sorts of homages to burger culture here: The seating features flip-up tables, just like the ones that used to exist at the shuttered Prime Burger and were know colloquially as "the track." The paper hats the staff wear, along with the gleaming white tile, harkens back to the birth of White Castle. The poster for said pioneering fast food chain that hangs proudly on the wall exhorting you to eat burgers for breakfast completes the montage. It's as if Headley is telling you, "It’s okay to feel nostalgic about burgers, but now you know better — Superiority Burger is better." At least from the perspective of health, but also, arguably, from an ethical standpoint:  Everything on the menu is vegetarian and many items are "accidentally vegan." The menu is sparse, utilitarian, and laid out like a punk fanzine. It contains two sandwiches, a wrap, a side, a dessert, and a drink.

Now you know better – Superiority Burger is better

Now I must admit that while my knowledge of hamburgers is as deep as my punk rock record collection, I have about as much knowledge of veggie burgers as I have prog rock or disco albums. So I brought along an expert: my vegan, punk rock girlfriend who hasn’t eaten meat in seven years (she has great taste in music, but terrible taste in food and men). We order both vegetarian and vegan versions of the Superiority Burger and the sloppy Joe. We skipped the hippy wrap because, well, it’s a hippy wrap. The principal difference between the sandwiches we order is that the bread on the vegetarian one is the virtually ubiquitous Martin’s potato roll (which contains milk) while the vegan option has a more artisanal bun. The vegan sandwich also obviously forgoes the cheese in favor of a non-dairy substitute.

Vegetarian and vegan versions of the signature burger.

But aside from those two differences, the burgers are appointed in an identical fashion with a slow-cooked tomato, lettuce, pickles, and a non-dairy special sauce variant. Bundled in brown wax paper, the sandwich emerges tightly molded and looks remarkably like an actual hamburger. So much so that biting into it is a little disorientating because it tastes nothing like an actual hamburger. Certainly the toppings, which form a wonderful melange of flavor, are the real deal, but the patty isn’t going to satisfy a vociferous carnivore. Despite having a truly impressive sear and a somewhat meaty texture it doesn’t have the mouthfeel or the juiciness of meat. How could it? It is constructed from tofu, beans, and grains.

But that isn’t the point. The salient question is how does Superiority Burger compare to other veggie burgers, and here my girlfriend was unequivocal in her praise: "It’s the closest thing that I have had to a traditional hamburger in seven years. It doesn’t crumble and fall apart, and it’s not too wet or dense — it holds together nicely." She adds that she liked the cheese substitute, which is usually waxy, heavy and glue-like. "This one was greasy in an appropriate way, and had an appealing flavor that complemented the patty. I don’t even like tomatoes, but the toppings here were perfect, no avocado or fake bacon, which are totally played out."  Her only criticism echoed my own: The vegan bun is too dense and unyielding, pushing out the patty rather than conforming around it. The bun also doesn’t span the patty all the way, leaving much of it exposed. But these quibbles aside, this is the best veggie burger she has had.

I was far more impressed with the sloppy Joe than I was by the burger. It came much closer to replicating the experience of the meat version because the sandwich comes in a sweet and tart tomato sauce that dominates the palate. In fact I didn’t feel I was missing out on anything eating this sandwich.

"Or in a ghetto cellar only yesterday, there’s a move into the future for the USA"

There must be something cathartic for Headley, who happens to plays drums in a punk band, to cook such visceral, lumpen food compared to ornate, bourgeois (dare I say effete?) work at his last job as pastry chef at the four-star Del Posto. But this is punk rock food beyond the mere aesthetic trappings of spray painted signs and The Clash playing in the background. The adoption of a strictly vegetarian menu taps in to moral and ethical zeitgeist that is an important part of the future of food. I would love to see what this world-class chef could do with a real hamburger, but I also have a great deal respect for the fact that Headley went in the opposite direction.

Would I come here and eat the Superiority Burger instead of going Veselka, Black Market, Whitman's, or The Brindle Room for a burger? Not a chance, but the East Village obviously already has enough great burgers. I'll be coming here regularly with my girlfriend to eat the sloppy Joe while she enjoys the best veggie burger on earth.

Eating out on $10/day.

Eater's Cheap Eats Week launches across all sites on Monday and to celebrate, staffers here in New York are participating in a food challenge that will test endurance, will, and creativity. It's called The Contest, and you're invited to join.

Here's the deal. During the entirety of Cheap Eats Week (7/13- 7/17) Eater staffers will attempt to spend only $10 per day eating out in NYC. We will document the process onsite all week and encourage readers to participate in the Eater forums. Contestants will publicly tap out when they break the rules and will be disqualified from play. A winner will be decided among the players left at the end of the week by a panel of impartial judges.

Judges will choose one Eater staffer winner, one non-Eater Vox Media staffer, and one reader as winners (to be announced on 7/20). Read on for the rules, the prizes, the hashtag.

The rules:

• Every player must spend no more than $10/day before tax and tip
• No cooking with groceries or eating groceries is allowed.
• Players cannot visit the same restaurant twice (though they can visit different locations of the same restaurant).
• Coffee, tea, alcohol and other beverages that cannot be considered a snack or meal are exempt. Get as drunk as you want. Smoothies and fancy $9 juices are not exempt.
• Fruit from a stand, cart, or bodega are permitted.
• all prepared bodega/deli food is permitted.
• Leftovers are allowed, so long as they were acquired during The Contest.
• Takeout is allowed.
• Chain restaurants are allowed.
• Team/couple play is allowed.
• No freebies that aren't available to the general population.
• Grocery store salad bars are permitted (but rotisserie chicken is not).
• Money doesn't roll over from one day to the next. You must spend under $10 each day.
• Judges will award points based on creativity and presumed deliciousness.

FAQs

Is there a hashtag?

#thecontest. Use it on instagram and get regrammed by the Eater account.

Who's the favorite?

Robert Sietsema, roving restaurant critic and cheap food enthusiast, is the man to beat.

Can you elaborate on freebies?

No free office snacks or comped meals, no meals that someone else buys you. No solicited freebies. That said, if a restaurant is handing out free samples to all passersby, that is permitted. If you go to a bar where free food is offered alongside drinks, that is permitted. If some stranger, unaware of your identity or The Contest, hands you a burrito on the street and you had no say in the matter, you can eat that.

Who will these judges be?

Larry David (or Vox Editorial VP Lockhart Steele and a collection of Vox Media EICs if David is unavailable).

Is this inspired by Seinfeld?

It's just like the Seinfeld episode, except with food.

What do I win?

Lifelong glory. Also, the winning Eater editor and the winning non-Eater Vox staffer will each get their $50 back. The winning reader will get $50 and a dinner with restaurant critic Robert Sietsema and Eater EIC Amanda Kludt.

Can't players just cheat without you knowing?

Like George, Jerry, Elaine, and Kramer, we're operating on the honor system.

Editors will be discussing their strategies for the week over in the forums today. Good luck to all.

You have two more chances to see a Manhattanhenge sunset this year: tonight and tomorrow night. Try to see at least some of it with your eyes, and not through your phone screen. [ more › ]

Although our kitchen is stocked with top-of-the-line equipment that allows us to create fantastic dishes, all in-house, there’s one tool that we don’t have: a 3D food printer.

Last year we collaborated with 3D Systems Culinary to create 3D-printed sugar sculptures, shaped like the colorful chimneys atop the Güell Palace, designed by Antoni Gaudí. The sculptures were used as “sugar cubes” during the absinthe service for our dinner honoring chef Ferran Adrià. We watched the sugar chimneys dissolve through a 3D-printed slotted spoon, designed to cradle it perfectly, as the absinthe was poured—a striking way to end the 50-course meal.

Those sugar chimneys fueled our fascination with reproducing architectural marvels and our continuing partnership with 3D Systems Culinary.

3D Food

When 3D food printers are discussed, comparisons are frequently made to the technologies and gadgets that are depicted in science fiction. It’s hard to avoid, after all. Many of us remember the replicator from Star Trek that could instantly prepare a single martini or a full meal by rearranging subatomic particles. It was perfect for voyages into deep space and seemed especially appealing after a long day at work when a materialized drink or warm meal would hit the spot.

3D food printing doesn’t work like a replicator, though. 3D printers work to create foods in different ways, but the process starts with a digital design. The design can be original, made with software, or scanned using a 3D scanner. Before the design is uploaded to the printer, a program slices it into thin, horizontal layers that the printer can read. To create the sugar chimneys, 3D Systems Culinary used the ChefJet Pro, the first professional-grade culinary 3D printer. The ChefJet Pro works a lot like making frosting in a bowl; it adds the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, just very, very precisely, layer by layer. It can incorporate food dyes into each layer, to produce photographic-quality color pieces. When the print is complete, compressed air is used to remove excess dry ingredients, revealing the finished sculpture.

3D food printing is still novel to most of us, although foods like frozen pancakes are made in a similar way. Some of the applications of 3D food printing are similar to its science fiction counterpart. NASA is investigating how 3D printers can feed astronauts on long missions. 3D food printing already has practical, terrestrial applications—some German nursing homes use it to create softer foods for patients with dysphagia, a difficulty in swallowing. 3D printing has created a new world of pastry applications, expanding what we can create with sugar and chocolate. We can create shapes and designs that would be impossible by hand, including elaborate architectural structures.

Let Them Eat Brioche

When 3D Systems Culinary reached out to us about a new collaboration, we were just on the heels of constructing Casa Batlló in gingerbread. A 3D-printed structure made out of sugar was the perfect way to highlight what 3D Systems Culinary can do. We also happened to be deep into the development of our brioche recipe, so we had the buttery bread on our minds. We connected the dots, from an ornate building to a sumptuous French bread, and found ourselves transported to the opulence of Versailles.

Bread is irrevocably woven into the history of Versailles. If Marie Antoinette said anything to the hungry peasants and sans-culottes it was to advise them to eat brioche instead of cake. Brioche was incredibly expensive, a luxury for the rich, and a far cry from the crusty whole-grain loaves that were eaten by the poor. Although the famous quote most likely belonged to a princess who lived 100 years before the revolution, bread still plays an important role in the history of the château. By October 5, 1789, the undercurrents of the French Revolution were already in motion, and flour and bread had been scarce for some time. Louis XVI and his family remained blissfully, and purposefully, ignorant at Versailles, a symbol of the disparity between the immense wealth of few and the poverty of the masses. Prices were high, tensions had escalated, and a crowd of angry working-class women was close to rioting at the market. The crowd grew into a mob of thousands that then began the long march to Versailles, armed with pitchforks and whatever they could find. Their siege forced Louis and his family to leave the picturesque castle to return to the realities of Paris. On July 14, 1789, less than a year later, a crowd of revolutionaries laid siege on the Bastille, signaling the beginning of the French Revolution.

Brioche Versailles

Our sugar Versailles began with a sketch by head chef Francisco Migoya, which 3D Systems Culinary transformed into a 3D digital model that could then be printed in sugar. The design of the enormous château was simplified because of the scale.

 

 

The structure had to fit around a brioche, even if the brioche was somewhat larger than normal. The 3D structure captures the incredible detail of the architect Louis Le Vau’s work and grandiose Baroque architecture—the repetition and symmetry of the windows and gates as well as the detailed moldings of filigree and foliage. Back at The Cooking Lab we designed an acrylic foundation, which we laser cut to resemble the grounds of the château.

 

Once the 3D printed sugar structure was delivered by the 3D Systems Culinary team, head chef Migoya baked an incredibly rich brioche. True to the project, it’s totally decadent—eggy, buttery, subtly sweet, and utterly delicious. He began construction by coating the brioche in a glaze of pectin and water, then topped it with gold leaf as a nod to the façade of Versailles. Gold leaf is safe to eat and has been consumed throughout history; ancient Egyptian royalty mixed gold in with their food, even incorporating it into breads.

Next, he painted a glaze on the base and covered it with grass (panko) to incorporate even more bread, mixed with Chlorella for color. The panko was patted down to fix it to the foundation, the brioche was centered, and, finally, the 3D-printed detail was placed over the loaf. Meringue rosebushes were added to the garden as a final flourish.

We served the brioche as it would have been eaten in 18th-century France—with a fat dollop of whipped cream (because everything is better with whipped cream), and then we added farm-fresh raspberries for a bright pop of color.

We hope you enjoy our latest collaboration with 3D Systems Culinary, and we look forward to our next sweet construction project!

 

 

 

 

Arrived happy and healthy on July 2, 2015 at 10:14am. 7lbs, 19.5inches.  

The Algonquin Hotel will be hosting their annual Cat Fashion Show on August 5th this year, with a special salute to the NYPD and FDNY. This is Veronica Corningstone reporting... [ more › ]

[Click on image to enlarge]

EVG reader Katherine spotted this memo in the front door of a building along East Seventh Street… on official (heh) NYC Department of Pedestrian Etiquette...

Per the sign:

Effective April 1, 2016 all new residents and visitors to New York City Over the age of 16 will be required to take a mandatory training session on Proper Etiquette for navigating the sidewalks and streets of the greater metropolitan area.

And?

Upon completion of training, applicants must then pass an oral and practical exam in order to qualify for a NYC DPE Pedestrian Permit. Any mistakes will result in denial of permission to enter the city for a period of no less than one year.

Click on the image for what the examples of the violations might include… "stopping on a bike path with a big group to take pictures of squirrels" …

I always wanted a ponytail.  A ponytail I could position extra high on my head with hair long enough to cascade down to my shoulders, cheerleader-style, youthful, bouncy.  The kind of hair, that you can flip around to express various emotions, from bitchy to bored to flirty.  

I don’t have ponytail hair.  Never did.  

What I’ve always had is a fine, curly, frizzy, perfectly acceptable, head of hair that I’m completely grateful for.  It’s just not ponytail hair.  It’s not hair I can whip around to express my enthusiasm for life.  

That’s how hair works, right?  

Summer fruit, all of the gorgeous peaches, apricots, strawberries, and plums… they’re like a gorgeous, shiny, lustrous, perfectly bouncy, high ponytail.  Showing off, effortless… a little enviable even.  

Luckily, no matter what hair grows from our head, high ponytail or not… it’s our time.  It’s Summer and the markets are bursting with sweet fruit flavors.  Let’s get at em!

Plums are perfect just as they are.  Deep purple skin.  Tart with just a hint of snap when you bite through.   Sweet insides.  Sour as you reach the pit.  They’re exactly right.    

These plums are golden on the inside, but the deep purple skin is dark enough to tint the finished sorbet a lovely shade of fuchsia.  

Pitted and sliced plums are boiled in a mixture of sugar and water.

Boiled to softened.  Boiled to almost jam.   

The plums will fall apart.  The skins will separate from the fruit flesh and tint the sugar water a lovely purple.  

A blender gets us one step closer to sorbet.  

The cooked fruit and sugar mixture is blended completely.  Skins and all.  No need to strain.  Everything is everything.  

The mixture will be hot (it was boiling fruit) when it goes into the blender.  You may need to blend in two batches.  Don’t be cavalier.   

The blended plum will need some quality chilling time in the refrigerator.  Literal chilling… not just relaxing.  

It helps if the mixture is completely cold before it’s churned into a bright pink sorbet.  

Smooth and glossy, soft and sweet.  This sorbet is perfectly scoop able, bright, and sweet.  The high proportion of sugar makes this sorbet creamy smooth and not icy.  I also love the little bits of skin.

Top with chopped salted pistachios and even a bit of chopped dark chocolate to balance the plum sorbet sweetness.

It’s Summer!  Ponytail or no… what a good life it is!  

It is a Saturday and it is summer and it is 84 degrees out and there are nearly two months until the 9 to 5 workset will be gifted with another 3-day weekend, since July 4th has come and cruelly gone. So, 7-Eleven is giving away free Slurpees all day. Does 7-Eleven, murderer of bodegas, make you sad? Well, you were going to give up and move to the suburbs, anyway, might as well get started now. [ more › ]

Citi Bike's mechanics, technicians, call center agents and "balancers" (those workers who load up docking stations with bicycles) have negotiated the country's first ever contract for bikeshare employees—one that promises paid vacation, holidays, and parental leave, as well as 20% raises over the next five years. [ more › ]

Doggie eating underwear, RIP Omar Sharif, the Ku Klux Klan highway, world's worst airplane seat design and more midday links. Don't forget to follow Gothamist on Twitter and Instagram, and like us on Facebook. [ more › ]

The free films return to the Park for the month of July … and according to the organizers, this year's lineup was hand selected by Matthew Broderick, Christie Brinkley, Billy Joel and James Franco.

The series starts tomorrow night with "Dog Day Afternoon."



You may arrive at 6 for the free film, which starts at sundown. The band City of the Sun will play a set before the movie.

You can head to the Films in Tompkins Facebook page for any updates. The Films in Tompkins sponsors are TD Bank, Boulton & Watt and Drexler's, the new bar opening this summer in the former Ella space at 9 Avenue A.

Updated 7-9

Threat of rain cancels tonight's screening ...

Amy Poehler has curated a new movie series, which will take place atop the McKittrick Hotel, of Sleep No More fame. The announcement today noted that "Poehler has chosen some of her favorite films from a variety of genres and decades, and they will be presented in a private garden space called The Farm, an extension of the rooftop garden bar and restaurant Gallow Green." [ more › ]

Just as we suspected: Pearl Jam will be playing Central Park this September, as part of the Global Citizen Festival lineup. Along with that announcement comes another big name joining the bill, Beyonce, who also made an appearance last year along with husband Jay Z. [ more › ]

Once again the San Fermin festival is underway in Pamplona, Spain. Dating from the 16th century and known worldwide for the harrowing running of the bulls over the city’s cobbled streets and criticized for its bullfights, the nine-day festival kicked off in a packed city square Monday with people dousing one another with wine and water. It concludes at midnight on July 14 with singing by candlelight.

A flaming fake bull known as a "Toro de fuego" runs after revelers during the 2015 San Fermin fiestas in Pamplona, Spain, on July 6. Revelers from around the world turned out to kick off the festival with a messy party in the Pamplona town square, one day before the first of eight days of the running of the bulls. (Andres Kudacki/Associated Press)

4800-year-old artificial eye along with a skeleton of a woman from the Burnt City (Iran)

backtobass:

In May of 2014, a foot-wide piece of plaster (one of the rosettes) fell from the ceiling of the NYPL's gorgeous Rose Reading Room. The NYPL immediately closed the room, and it remains closed today. [ more › ]

For longer hotel stays, it makes life easier to put all your clothes in drawers instead of rifling through a tangled web of t-shirts, shorts, and shoes. Or, you could make things even easier with a suitcase that transforms into a pre-packed dresser.

Read more...

The 2015 American Customer Satisfaction Index Restaurant Report was just released, ranking fast-food restaurants in the U.S. in terms of customer satisfaction on a scale of 1 to 100. Not only does this year mark Chick-fil-A’s debut on the ACSI list,…

The post Chick-fil-A Ranks #1 Fast-Food Restaurant for Customer Satisfaction appeared first on First We Feast.