Customers Rush to Pizzeria’s DefenseThe Health Department can’t win for losing: Having failed to close the vermin-infested KFC–Taco Bell, they’re now taking heat for temporarily shutting down coal-oven institution John’s Pizzeria and neighboring Risotteria. Both restaurants protested their closure in the most emphatic terms, and their customers, far from being spooked, jumped right onboard. In a letter put up alongside the closure notice, John’s tells passersby that the city is “trying to save face”: “After SEVENTY years in business, they have decided we need a sink CLOSER TO the pizza-making area,” the note explains. Loyal customers have contributed their own sentiments: “First they came for the smokers,” wrote one libertarian, “then the pizza lovers.” Meanwhile, a punning Risotteria fan has declared that the inspectors are “full of beans.” Your move, Health Department.
the in-box
The Pied Pipers of Dallas and Louisville
With city fast food restaurants being overrun with rats last week, Daily Intel heard the other side of the rodent’s story from a local enthusiast, Raquel Cintron. Her claim that rats are simply misunderstood was met with cheers from others around the country who keep the animals as pets. Perhaps predictably, their side of things is not often heard in public. After the jump, letters from people decrying the injustice of allowing tenants to keep hamsters but no rats. “People just think about the tail,” lamented one rat-keeper.
Mediavore
Paul Liebrandt Back in Play; Rat Chief Vows to Exterminate the BrutesThe city’s rat-patrol chief vows that “the rats will not win.” [NYT]
In Vogue, Jeffrey Steingarten reveals that New York’s top unemployed chef, Paul Liebrandt, is doing a restaurant with Drew Nieporent. Snack asserts it’s Montrachet. [Snack]
Amusing slam of Bruni’s Robert’s Steakhouse review from conservative mainstay National Review. Need we say more? [National Review Online]
the morning line
The Starrett Sale Is Dead!
• That $1.3 billion Starrett City deal? Yeah, not gonna happen. The Housing and Urban Development secretary is blocking the sale of the subsidized enclave to Clipper Equity. The deal’s vocal opponents included Bloomberg, Cuomo, Spitzer, Schumer, Clinton, and, apparently, God. [NYDN]
• Meanwhile, the demolition at the future Atlantic Yards site begins in earnest, with Ratner aiming the wrecking ball at twelve buildings on Pacific, Flatbush, Vanderbilt, and Dean — all within next week. Is it good-bye, weird Guyanese JRG Fashion Cafe? [NYP]
• The dancing-rat drama is far from over. In fact, it’s amping up: After its initial gaffe, the Health Department came down like a hammer on three more joints (this time, for variety’s sake, Pizza Huts) owned by the same franchisee; the parent company, Yum Brands, then voluntarily closed ten more. [NYT]
• And dentist Lawrence Rosenthal is suing Cory Lidle’s estate for $7 million dollars, because the Yankee’s fiery death had inconvenienced him. This, mind you, is the same Rosenthal of the BadDentist.com infamy. Litigious, much? [amNY]
intel
Meet the Rat Lady
Recent rats-in-restaurants footage has repulsed nearly every New Yorker — Au Bon Pain, anyone? — except perhaps for those in the city’s small rat-enthusiast contingent. Raquel Cintron is one of them; for twenty years she’s raised pet rats and participates in New York and international rat organizations. We spoke to her yesterday about the difference between domestic rats and wild ones, and about her spiritual connection to subway rats.
What do you think of the restaurant rat-infestation story?
I saw the video on the Internet, and I thought the rats were cute. They don’t belong in a restaurant, but that’s the fault of human beings who didn’t block up holes or left garbage hanging around. If we provide food, water, and shelter, the rat thrives.
How do you react to a rat on a subway platform?
I stand there and look at him and he stands there and looks at me because we love each other. Rat lovers see them as intelligent creatures, as survivors, and we respect wild rats’ connection to the domestic rat. But I don’t want him coming toward me, because he could bite. It’s not good to interact with any wild animal.
Back of the House
Rats Stop in Au Bon Pain for Dessert
As we said yesterday (and as everyone knows), as much as rats love fried chicken and tacos, they pretty much eat all over town. This new video of the frisky creatures running rampant at an Au Bon Pain on Third Avenue simply serves as a disturbing reminder. (Would it kill WNBC to tell us which Au Bon Pain, by the way? There is more than one Third Avenue location.) The rodents are much more common in food establishments of every kind than most people like to believe, and in ratty neighborhoods like the East Village, they frequently have the run of even some good restaurants. Still, there’s something especially horrible about this video, which features one of the little guys doing what looks like pull-ups on some kind of valve handle. It’s as if they’re in training to take over the whole of Manhattan.
Update: Au Bon Pain would like to point out that the rats pictured above, as well as the rats doing pull-ups, belong to Taco Bell. (The WNBC piece devotes time to both restaurants.) We regret the error.
Rats Caught on Video at Another New York Restaurant [KSDK]
in other news
The Health Department Also Thinks You Really Ought to Be Wearing a Sweater
Things the New York City Health Department spends its time doing, even though we always thought they were the sorts of things that were none of the city’s business:
• Determining whether we may smoke in bars.
• Determining whether we may ingest trans fats.
Things the New York City Health Department is apparently incapable of doing, even though we always thought this was why health departments exist:
• Monitoring dirty fast-food places to ensure they’re not infested with frolicking rats.
Additional responsibilities City Council Speaker Christine Quinn agrees with Mayor Bloomberg the Health Department should take on, according to today’s Post:
• Making sure fast-food chains post calorie information on their menu boards.
the morning line
But How Does He Feel About Trans Fats?
• In the no-brainer firing of the year, the Health Department has divested itself of the inspector who gave a passing grade to the famously ratty KFC–Taco Bell. The shuttered place, meanwhile, became a locus for some fun public art. [NYT]
• Underreported amid the possible culprits of yesterday’s Wall Street carnage — China, Cheney — were horrendously timed technical glitches at the NYSE: At some point, trades were done via paper tickets. [NYP]
• Add a federal investigation to the list of JetBlue’s headaches: The U.S. Transportation Secretary is calling for an official look-see into the recent snowstorm stranding of passengers on the JFK tarmac. American Airlines will get its own probe for a similar incident in Austin. [amNY]
• The Thurmond-Sharpton Roots-on-acid miniseries continues to play out: The senator’s biracial daughter, Essie Mae Washington Williams, is reprimanding the reverend for “overreacting,” saying “[my father] did many wonderful things for black people.” [NYDN]
• And meet Gerard Mortier, new director of the New York City Opera, whose farewell production on his previous job was a staging of Die Fledermaus with cocaine, incest, suicide, and Nazis. Welcome!!! [CBS News]
the morning line
Poor Joe Bruno
• We’ve heard some incriminating things about Joe Bruno, Albany’s top Republican, lately; he’s been enmeshed in some fishy investments and nepotistic dealings, and the FBI is all over him. Now comes the most shocking revelation: All this hustle and the dude isn’t even rich. [NYT]
• The Health Department on the shuttered KFC–Taco Bell that became one of West Village’s main attractions this past weekend for its scampering rats: “It doesn’t look like the inspection that was done … met our standards.” What do you mean? There’s not a drop of trans fat on these babies! [WNBC]
• Apparently state senators were serious about protesting the $1.3 billion sale of Brooklyn’s subsidized enclave Starrett City to an -private equity group. After the obligatory photo ops glad-handing the residents, they’re actually trying to pass a bill that will block the deal. [NYP]
• More grief for JetBlue: Last night’s relatively light dusting of snow caused the now-extra-cautious carrier to cancel a whopping 68 of today’s flights. Yeah, we’d be unloading that stock right about now, if we had any. [AP via CBS News]
• And how can you tell someone’s got a touch of Oscar envy? James “King of the World” Cameron will hold a press conference in New York today — to declare that he has found Jesus’s grave. [amNY]
photo op
Oh, Rats
Here’s what you missed if you weren’t watching local news this morning: Those frolicking rats? Yeah, they’re frolicking in the Taco Bell–KFC on Sixth Avenue in the Village. Thinking outside the bun, indeed.
Rats Infest NYC Restaurant [WNBC.com]
Rats Shown Running Around a Closed Restaurant [AP via 1010WINS.com]
in other news
New York’s Rats: Irritating When Infesting, Delicious When SmokedWhile New Yorkers have been tying up the 311 lines to report their ever-escalating rodent problems, as the Times reminded us early last week, the enterprising folks at West African Grocery in Hell’s Kitchen don’t complain about their rodents — they stock them in the refrigerator section. Food-safety inspectors seized two pounds of smoked rodent meat from the market last week; there’s no word on whether these were imported specimens or New York’s native Norways. According to Microlivestock: Little-Known Small Animals With a Promising Economic Future, a book put out by the National Research Council, an estimated 42 cultures worldwide eat rodents; the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that rat meat makes up half the locally produced meat consumed in Ghana. The rats for sale at West African Grocery don’t seem to be in quite as high demand — a prescient poster on Chowhound wrote of the place last May, “while I’m not at all squeamish about the arguable lack of sanitary conditions (to put it mildly), I’ve just never had the impression they have particularly high turnover.” And, really, who likes rat that isn’t fresh? —Wren Abbott
N.Y. Cracks Down on Armadillos, Iguanas, Rodents and Cow Lungs [AP via WABC]
