Looking Forward to the Next Incarnation

My favorite neighborhood restaurant is gone now. It was on the corner behind BASIC, by my house, and I'd call from the PATH train in the evenings, place an order for a cauliflower and potato dish in spicy tomato mixture, and pick it up with rice ten minutes later to eat at home.

The proprietor hadn't let on that they might suddenly close, and I'd been in just a few days before. I'd seen the business for sale on a website, but pretty much all restaurants in JC are for sale, so I didn't take that too seriously.

Rumor on the street is that the owner of the space and the owner of the restaurant had a falling-out, which isn't entirely surprising as the other rumor over the years has been that the owner of the space has had a lot of falling outs, and wasn't well liked by his staff when he ran his own restaurant there some years back. Several restaurants had tried out the space before Parkside was there for several years. All failed—I think it's that the rent is obscenely high—but the highlight was the one that tried hilariously awful dinner theater. The waiters were also the actors. Yancey, Roberta, and I went once, had a good laugh, and never mustered up the energy to try again.

I'm sad to see Parkside Bistro go, especially because the other reliable stand-by, Embankment, went at the same time. Plus, I was the mayor on Foursquare. I guess I'll be the mayor forever now.