The Empty Box

You may remember a post from back in 2013 wherein I lamented the impending closing of Bleecker Street’s Pizza Box, a humble little pizzeria that had been serving up slices on that partiular strip since 1957. I pointed out that it had been a regular stop for my friend Rob and I during our regular sorties hitting downtown’s formerly robust network for independent record stores. Well, just as all those music shops were picked off one by one as if by a sniper, the Pizza Box, too, closed to make way for a tapas joint called 100 Montaditos that sought to exude at atmophere of “affordable elegance.”

Evidently, "affordable elegance" didn't sell.

100 Montaditos has apparently been closed for some time now (at least since last June), but I only noticed it this morning on my walk to work. 100 Montaditos only lasted about two and a half years or so. Meanwhile, it displaced a concern that had been there for 56 years.

And now? Now there’s nothing there.

Comments

[DrBop]

Well here's a new gasp of air coming to West Cleveland......I'm a little concerned about the use of the phrase "vinyl-focused store".....and we all know where the term bodega belongs.....so tread carefully ;^)

http://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2017/02/lakewoods_new_wax_bodega_recor.html#incart_river_home

[NoOriginalArt]

I heard Pizza Box closed after the original owner decided to retire but couldn't find a buyer for the restaurant: with all the other old-school businesses in the neighborhood closing however, I kinda knew it was doomed. The little backyard behind the building where I loved eating lunch on those rare pleasant spring days in Lower Manhattan was probably too perfect to exist. (Humid summer afternoons, not so much.) What was really sad was that the tapas at the new place sucked. Everything tasted like it came out of a deep fryer or was wrapped in Pillsbury crescent roll dough.