Technological leapfrogging is a term I came to understand during my first trip to Europe, in 2017. Nearly everywhere I went (restaurant, pub, wine bar, Paris flea market kiosk) accepted card via mobile POS (Point Of Sale but Piece of Shit also works). Back then the bar I worked at still wrote out people’s tabs on flash cards and did math mentally. I was of course familiar with Venmo and Square for years, and though I had never had cause to consider it before, was confused why we didn’t have these little handheld credit card terminals back in New York; famously in the greatest city in the greatest country on mother universe’s blue marble. Now they are ubiquitous but it took an international pandemic to get there. The tech being leapfrogged is the old one that still works well enough to be useful (like signing out your tab on a receipt paper) so you haven’t had to take on the start-up cost of making the switch to a more advanced technology (the terminal thingy). Ipso facto Euros jumped from cash to table side check out and we were none the wiser. That two months trip was my first experience of the wine bar, as we know and tolerate it today; another technological restructuring predating the pandemic but popularized post-covid.
Naturally I have a theory about this. The summer of 2021 the entry to Europe reopened to those who had been vaccinated. This was made news in like May or June of that year and it is my belief everyone who was financially able pulled up a search for flights and bought the first available at a decent time and price approximately mid July. During the month-ish in between purchase and departure covid cases began to climb to a relevant level of worried but all those soon to leave for their first vacation ignored any inconvenient signs of sore throats or odd coughs and a week after touching down on the old continent were in a full swing of a new covid variant. The absconders, myself included, had to stick to the single country of their entry to avoid having to rapid test to cross borders. Meaning if you tested positive not only could you not go to Italy or wherever but you’d be stuck in whatever town you tested negative. Well that was the main worry unless say you were shuttled over from say France to Italy in hypothetically a personal vehicle with EU/Italian plates by perhaps an dating app match from say Monaco to Sanremo or Genoa. Like the movie Ronin but for clandestine pursuit of aperitif. There are worse places to be condemned to chill out in than Marseille but during August you’ll be shit out of luck for lodging as the whole town books up save for the big expensive hotel dans le Vieux-Port. This is also why we, not long ago, got the seemingly out of nowhere trend of those rubbery transparent brown French gardening clogs made from recycled hemp. A month in Southern France gives you a lot of time to kill in which you invariably visit the famously old hardware store in downtown Marseille where they did sell said clog but regrettably not in my size.
Perhaps a tedious thing for me to harp on about, but, Frog wine bar in Bed Stuy, as of publish date, cheapest wine = $16 for a smallish glass and cheapest beer $10 for a 16oz Pilsner or IPA in a can. The prices at Spring? Glass of white/red/rose/cava for $12 and a Snow beer for $7. Also that the wine bar of Paris or Marseille ou autre is probably $6 (though yes you have to also fly there) and since we are now on to places like Athens, and various isles of Greece, and yes they can be near New York prices there, but really just at tourist bars full of people professedly half Greek (and the other half French), and at the one spot on Sifnos next to the old drunk Rum bar with the stray cats above the cove, with the restaurant Obama went to... Just some preconditions so we are functioning within similar parameters. I did have some of the best seafood I’ve ever eaten at the taverna right next door but it’s not like I grew up eating sun softened squid so I’m not an expert and this is a website for reviews of bars so…
I was at the current hottest hotspot Bar Oliver. I walked in around 3pm with a bit of cash and a few emails to read through. I ordered a small beer (a demi) from the nice young men behind the bar. The three journeymen sommeliers began a conversation about wine. They discussed how the fall of the Iron Curtain fomented a return to more traditional processes by regional winemakers in the former Soviet States of the Caucasus. The USSR’s insistence of mass production and mechanization over cultural/regional identity had long troubled the vintners of say Georgia; whose history on the vine reaches back many thousands of years. They did this with the same tone and vigour I often express regarding the Knicks. Cool. It was less cool that they didn’t know me because they don’t, in my memory, frequent Mr. Fong’s for a post shift beer and a shot and thereby I was forced to pay for the full pint I was presented, despite having ordered a demi, and then furthermore explained they did not have exact change for a 20 but they had a 5 so I said “oh just keep the difference for tip” which I would have done anyway but the point being, what is going on exactly?
Spring opened on Madison St, near both Oliver and Fong’s, two weeks ago. The bar was last occupied by a brewery that I’m told wasn’t open very much and is based somewhere upstate. The renovation of the space feels open and airy, more so than say Cellar 36 and less cacophonous, and not just a little reminiscent of the old Beverly’s. In contrast to the heavier hand of say Parcelle, and brighter and more diurnal than 10 Belles or Skin Contact or Dr. Clark, more casual than Somm Time or Chloe 81, and more accessible than Le Dive and less poorly named. Despite my initial concerns of opening a bar named Spring when Spring Lounge is named Spring, in a city of over 8 million surely there may be room for two Springs. There are two Clandestinos (Klan Destino) after all. Regrettably I haven’t been to BabySips yet, but it is on my list, and RIP Gem Wine far be it from me to speak ill.
The bar to really compare Spring to is the, beloved by many, Frog wine bar. If you feel down on your luck by being unable to find a new apartment with your girlfriend in Bed Stuy, go to Frog wine to remind yourself you can’t afford the drink prices here either. On a positive note, there are significantly less children than Rhodora so it does have that going for it.
The wine bar in NYC is only about wine if you have the budget for it and require an excuse to drink. The wine bar in NYC is also about getting permission to open a bar in an area that has been inundated with too many full strength liquor licenses. It’s getting harder and harder to be approved to serve alcohol like tequila, vodka etc, all of which are around 40% or 80 proof. The wine bar caps off at 20% - like vermouth a la Bar Oliver or soju at Reception. I presume everyone to already know this all but I doubt most people have been to a community board hearing on liquor licensing. A host of regulations like proximity to a school or church or the density of such businesses in the area open up the floor to the input (mostly complalints) of neighborhood community groups who shockingly don’t often seem to be fond of new bars. I do recommend going to one of these such meetings as a date which you could allude to in your Hinge profile. Another favorite of mine is the instructional session and short tour of the recycling center in Industry City; right by that one stop the Rockaway Ferry makes in south brooklyn.
Spring is the best new bar in New York and when people find out about this they will be flooding the huge backyard to get a table. Remember how so many outside dining permits were pulled at the beginning of this summer? No issue of that here. For food they have a $12 beef curry, a pickled (and spicy) cabbage salad (almost kimchi), fries etc, and I am very much looking forward to surely fast approaching calendar of food pop-ups. The importance of home cooked beef curry, and kimchi, for dinner at 10:30 without having to walk away from a bevy of friends and conversation cannot be overstated. The biggest and most obvious piece of renovation is the large overheads awning good for shielding from both direct sun and direct rain and there’s even a big basement (shhhh). My brother had dinner, a glass of wine and beer for less than $30 pre tip. All the things I have to say that are good about it are truly plain and obvious physical attributes because it has popped up in such a way that every decision seems to just make sense because that’s what was needed to be done. Have you ever sat at the bar at Le Dive? You can’t quite get your knees under it. It was style after or inspired by Chez Jeanette in Paris where similarly you can’t get your knees quite under because people don’t really sit like that drinking at a bar in Paris anyway. But guess where they do do that big time? It feels like a combination of what makes these types of places great in Europe and great in New York City’s Chinatown: most places in Berlin or Paris or Marseille or Naples or wherever the local flavor beer/wine/spritz feels like a civil right and in Chinatown things are usually made nice and made cheap and made good because we are in the middle of New York City the best and most expensive city on Earth surely at least somewhere shouldn’t be trying to fuck you out of rent and give you the neighborly respect of saying so with their whole menu and space.
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This place sounds perfect. Going now.