Chris Noth – IAMNOTASTALKER

May 10, 2017May 9, 2017

Soup Burg from “Sex and the City”

I am the first to admit that I get fixated on the most random things. A few years back, I became obsessed with identifying the diner featured at the very end of the Season 1 episode of Sex and the City titled “Models and Mortals.” Though the eatery only appeared briefly, I was consumed with tracking it down. What can I say? I love a good diner. It took some legwork to find the place, but find it, I did. Sadly, by that time, Soup Burg, at 922 Madison Avenue on New York’s Upper East Side, had long since closed its doors. So while I never got the chance to eat there, I still ran right out to stalk its former location during my trip to the Big Apple last April.

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In “Models and Mortals,” Mr. Big (Chris Noth) and Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) run into each other at a fashion show after-party and strike up a conversation, during which he asks her where she writes her “cute” weekly newspaper column. She responds, “Well, about half the time, I’m at my apartment and the other half I’m over at this coffee shop on 73rd and Madison.” Flash forward to the episode’s final scene. Big surprises Carrie by randomly showing up at said coffee shop, where they discuss men who date models. During their brief conversation (he’s late for a meeting, you see), he informs her, “First of all, well, there are so many goddamn gorgeous women out there in this city. But the thing is this – after a while, you just want to be with the one that makes you laugh.” For those not well-versed in all things Sex and the City, Big is speaking about Carrie. The two get together just a few episodes later.

While scrutinizing “Models and Mortals” for clues as to the coffee shop’s whereabouts, I noticed that a sign reading “Soup Burg” was very briefly visible behind Mr. Big when he first sat down . . .

. . . as well as on the door when he left the restaurant.

So I headed to Google and quickly came across a Yelp page for a defunct eatery by that name which stated its former address as 1095 Lexington Avenue on New York’s Upper East Side. Eureka, right? Wrong. It was not long before I figured out that while Soup Burg was a longtime UES staple dating back to the ‘40s, during its heyday the restaurant actually boasted three outposts, none of which was still in operation. The Lex Ave location did not open until 2004 and the third iteration at 1026 1st Avenue was also established around that same time. Since “Models and Mortals” was lensed in 1998, I knew the episode could not have been shot at either of those two spots. Filming had to have occurred at the original Soup Burg. So back to the drawing board I went. Another Google search led me to this 2014 The New York Times article which noted that the restaurant’s inaugural site was on the corner of East 73rd Street and Madison Avenue – exactly where Carrie had said it was in the episode! D’oh! The article also mentioned that the space was now home to a cashmere shop. From there it was easy to pinpoint the eatery’s exact former address of 922 Madison.

Soup Burg was originally established at the Madison Avenue site way back in 1948. I am unaware of who initially founded it, but in 1964, the café was purchased by Greek native Peter Gouvakis, who had worked on the premises since 1958. Soup Burg thrived under Gouvakis’ tutelage, becoming a veritable New York institution.

During the 1970s, Peter’s son Jimmy started working at Soup Burg, eventually taking it over, along with his brother, John, and their brother-in-law, Timmy Vlachos. The trio further grew the business and perfected the recipes. Soup Burg became known citywide for its burgers, which Time Out NY rated as the third best burgers in all of Manhattan in 2004. Though the two sister cafes were opened, the Madison Avenue location remained the best-loved. Of the site, New York magazine had this to say, “There are a few places on the East Side with this name, each as small as your first – or current – apartment, each looking like it was built in two days, each routinely buffed to a high Formica shine, and each with a menu big enough to daunt the banquet kitchen at the Marriott Marquis. Ignore all of them but the one at this address.”

In July 2006, Jimmy was informed that the rent on the Madison Avenue site was increasing from $21,000 a month to $65,000. Sadly, Gouvakis could not afford the increase and the restaurant (which, by that time, had been operating in the same space for 58 years!) shuttered later that month. By November, the upscale Manrico Cashmere boutique had moved in. You can see what the Madison Avenue Soup Burg looked like while it was still in operation here, here, here, and here. And you can read two great articles on its closing on the Doktor Weingolb blog here and here.

By that time, the 1st Avenue location had also closed its doors. And though the Lexington Avenue outpost remained open and extremely popular with New Yorkers as one of the only spots in the neighborhood to get a decent, affordable meal, it, too, faced a rent hike in 2014 and shuttered in June of that year. The increase was a pretty dumb move on the landlord’s part if you ask me, being that, per Google Street View, the space is currently vacant and does not look to have ever been occupied since Soup Burg moved out.

Many mourned the loss of the last operating Soup Burg. The New York Times journalist Anne Barnard had this to say about the closure, “The Soup Burg is – was – the archetype of what in today’s homogenized, all-American city is usually called a diner. Premillennial, pre-Starbucks New Yorkers would call it a coffee shop. Not the kind where you get a latte, though that item was grudgingly added to the menu. The kind where you get a burger bigger than its bun, or home fries with sweet peppers and onions, or a chicken orzo soup with saltines. Where you can sit down and eat for $10, with a bottomless, not distractingly good $1.50 coffee, and where they know your face, your order and sometimes even your name.”

I’m really sad I never got the chance to dine at any of the Soup Burg restaurants, but at least the original is forever immortalized onscreen thanks to Sex and the City.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Soup Burg, from the “Models and Mortals” episode of Sex and the City, was formerly located at 922 Madison Avenue on New York’s Upper East Side. The space currently houses Manrico Cashmere. Via Quadronno, one of my very favorite Big Apple eateries, is located right around the corner at 25 East 73rd Street. It also appeared in “Models and Mortals.” You can read my post on the restaurant here.

May 2, 2016May 1, 2016

Old Town Bar from “Sex and the City”

My recent trip to New York was nothing short of epic and I somehow managed to stalk a good 100 locales while there. I cannot wait to blog about all of them! The spot I was most excited about visiting was one that had been perched at the top of my NYC To Stalk list for years, but that I had never actually made it to during any of my previous Big Apple vacays. I am talking about Old Town Bar, a historic Union Square-area watering hole that appeared in an early episode of fave show Sex and the City. Fate took hold during this trip, though, as one evening the Grim Cheaper, my friend Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong website, and I happened to randomly find ourselves just a few blocks from the tavern, which also goes by the name “Old Town Bar & Restaurant,” right around dinnertime, so we popped in for a bite to eat. The establishment turned out to be everything I hoped it would be – and more.

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Old Town Bar is the quintessential historic Manhattan watering hole. As author Jef Klein says in his book The History and Stories of the Best Bars of New York, “A setting that calls to mind a Scott Joplin tune, the Old Town Bar & Restaurant is absolutely vintage, Gilded Age New York.”

The eatery was originally established in 1892 (yes, 1892!) as Viemeister’s, a German restaurant/bar.

At the time of its inception, the property’s lower level housed a tavern that was only accessible to men, while the second floor (pictured below) was comprised of a dining room that was open to men, women and children.

During the Prohibition years, the establishment operated as a speakeasy known as Craig’s Restaurant. According to The History and Stories of the Best Bars of New York, some of the vintage booths still boasts seats that lift, “a “holdover from those days when customers needed a place to hide booze in a hurry.”

When Prohibition ended in 1933, the site was purchased by a man named Claus Lohden and rebranded “Old Town Bar.” Lohden and his children ran the place through 1985, at which time it was taken over by longtime employee Larry Meagher, who started working there in the ‘70s. By that point, the tavern had fallen into a bit of disrepair, so Larry began to restore it. Amazingly, and thanks in large part to his efforts, much of the original 1892 décor remains intact, including the 55-foot mahogany and marble bar, the 16-foot high tin ceilings (which according to The History and Stories of the Best Bars of New York were “last painted white on Election Day 1952” and are “stained a dark brown, thanks to years of cigar and cigarette smoke”), chandeliers (once gas-powered that have since been converted to electric), intricate black and white tile flooring, and a 258-square-foot bevel edge plate mirror. Even the property’s dumbwaiters are historic – according to the Old Town Bar website, they are “New York’s oldest active restaurant conveyers.” The urinals are also noteworthy. They hail from 1910 and are the last Hinsdale urinals still in operation on the East Coast. A 100th birthday party was infamously held in their honor in 2010. Yes, Old Town Bar is a place that appreciates and celebrates its history.

Today, the site is run by Larry Meagher’s five children, who work painstakingly to ensure that the watering hole’s history is kept alive. (And yes, I’m really annoyed at the a**hat in the second picture below who ruined my photo.)

Old Town Bar has long been popular with the literary set and has counted such luminaries as Pulitzer Prize winner Frank McCourt, poet Seamus Heaney, journalist Jim Dwyer, Payback author Thomas Kelly, novelist Nick Hornby, writer Nuala O’Faolain, dramatist Brian Friel, poet Billy Collins, screenwriter Budd Schulberg, and columnist Christopher Hitchens as patrons. Artist Andy Warhol was also known to frequent the site.

It’s not hard to see the appeal of the place – not only is the ambiance fabulous and oh-so “old New York,” but the food is excellent! Any restaurant that features chicken strips on the regular menu (not just the kids’) is my kind of spot!

Thanks to its old world aesthetic, location managers have long flocked to Old Town Bar. The sheer amount of productions it has appeared in is amazing! In fact, I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I started writing this post.

It is there that Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) – in an epic, slow-motion, heart-pounding moment – runs into Mr. Big (Chris Noth) for the first time since their break-up in the Season 2 episode of Sex and the City titled “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” Even though the circumstances couldn’t be better for Carrie – she looks fabulous and has the “New Yankee” Joe (Mark Devine) on her arm – seeing Big causes her to break down.

I learned about Old Town Bar’s appearance in the episode thanks to the book Sex and the City: Kiss and Tell, in which co-executive producer John Melfi is quoted as saying, “On Sex and the City, we try to have a location make sense for the scenes. We’ll go to a historic location like the Old Town Bar, where Carrie went on a date with the Yankee, and we’ll be careful not to damage the mirrors or the booths because it’s a staple of New York and we want people to know that that’s a real bar. We’re really proud to be able to shoot in these places.”

Old Town Bar was also featured prominently in the opening credits of The David Letterman Show from 1982 to 1993. In the segment, the camera panned the front of the watering hole and then ventured inside and scanned the interior. Sorry for the craptastic screen captures below – the only clip of the credits available on YouTube is of low quality.

You can watch that clip by clicking below.

In the 1990 drama State of Grace, Frankie Flannery (Ed Harris) attempts to offload five cases of Bushmills to a unwilling bar owner at the watering hole.

That same year, Old Town Bar popped up in the drama Q & A as the spot where Asst. Dist. Atty. Aloysius ‘Al’ Francis Reilly (Timothy Hutton) met with Leo Bloomenfeld (Lee Richardson) for a corned beef lunch.

Old Town Bar was used in establishing shots of Riff’s Bar, Jamie Stemple Buchman (Helen Hunt) and Paul Buchman’s (Paul Reiser) regular hangout – where Ursula Buffay (Lisa Kudrow) haphazardly waited tables – on the ‘90s television series Mad About You.

Interior scenes that took place at Riff’s were obviously not filmed on site, but on a set located at The Culver Studios, where the series was lensed.

I was thrilled to spot a letter hanging on the wall at Old Town Bar from one of the Mad About You associate producers that detailed the first appearance of the property on the series.

The music video for House of Pain’s 1992 hit “Jump Around” was largely filmed at Old Town Bar.

You can watch that video by clicking below.

Portions of Madonna’s 1993 “Bad Girl” music video were also lensed at Old Town Bar.

You can watch the “Bad Girl” video by clicking below.

According to the Old Town Bar website, the watering hole also made an appearance in the 1994 comedy Bullets Over Broadway. I believe the scene shot on the premises is pictured below.

Though some elements don’t seem to correlate with the set-up of the actual bar, the paned glass panel pictured behind John Cusack and Dianne Wiest in the screen captures match what was shown on Sex and the City, as does the posted “MEN” sign and the coat hooks positioned next to it.

In 1997’s The Devil’s Own, Rory Devaney (Brad Pitt) meets up with Billy Burke (Treat Williams) at Old Town Bar.

The establishment masks as Rex’s, the restaurant where Alice (Chloe Sevigny), Charlotte (Kate Beckinsale), Des (Chris Eigeman) and Jimmy (Mackenzie Austin) go on a group date and discuss feminism, in 1998’s The Last Days of Disco.

In the 2000 drama Boiler Room, Chris Varick (Vin Diesel) and his co-workers get into a fight with some J.P. Morgan brokers at Old Town Bar.

In 2008, the exterior of the site popped up in a brief establishing shot in the drama Life in Flight, though interiors were filmed elsewhere.

Old Town Bar appeared twice in the Season 1 episode of Bored to Death titled “The Case of the Stolen Sperm,” which aired in 2009 – first in the scene in which Jonathan Ames (Jason Schwartzman) and George Christopher (Ted Danson) ran into reviewers Richard Antrem (Oliver Platt) and Louis Greene (John Hodgman), and later in the scene in which Richard challenged George to a boxing match.

Serena van der Woodsen (Blake Lively) and Ben Donovan (David Call) celebrated Valentine’s Day at Old Town Bar in the Season 4 episode of Gossip Girl titled “It-Girl Happened One Night,” which aired in 2011.

In the Season 1 episode of Person of Interest titled “Matsya Nyaya,” which aired in 2012, John Reese (James Caviezel) and Joss Carter (Taraji P. Henson) had a heart-to-heart about trust – and saved one of their numbers – at Old Town Bar.

And the tavern was where Joey (Jamie Bell) proposed to Angie (Genesis Rodriguez) at the end of the 2012 thriller Man on a Ledge.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Old Town Bar, from the “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” episode of Sex and the City, is located at 45 East 18th Street, near Union Square, in New York. You can visit the watering hole’s official website here.

May 27, 2010June 16, 2011

The New York Public Library from “Sex and the City: The Movie”

In honor of today’s big premiere of Sex and The City 2, I thought I’d blog about a location from the original movie that I stalked this past October while I was in Manhattan – the New York Public Library. And even though I’ve actually blogged about this location once before, since I did not include any interior photographs, I thought the place was definitely worth re-visiting. In the original Sex and the City movie, Carrie Bradshaw (aka Sarah Jessica Parker) and her fiancé Mr. Big (aka Chris Noth) plan to hold their upcoming nuptials at the library because, as Carrie says, it is “the classic New York landmark that housed all the great love stories”. The New York Public Library was constructed during the years 1902 through 1911 on the site of the former Croton Reservoir and was designed by the architecture firm Carrere & Hastings. The Beaux-Arts structure, which is made of white marble and cost $9 million to build, encompasses two full blocks of New York City land and contains 88 miles of shelving which holds over seven million books. Amazingly enough, any one of those seven million tomes can be requested and delivered to the library’s main circulation desk within a period of ten minutes or less! The New York Public Library, which was named a National Historic Monument in 1965, is a truly amazing piece of architecture and, being that it is symbolic of the two great loves of Carrie Bradshaw’s life – New York City and writing – it is easy to see why producers chose it as the site of her ill-fated wedding.

The library shows up twice in Sex and the City: The Movie. It first appears in the scene in which Carrie, while returning the book “Love Letters of Great Men, Volume I”, spots a wedding being set up in the library’s mezzanine. She immediately decides the place is the perfect location for her own upcoming nuptials.

That first scene was shot in the extremely beautiful McGraw Rotunda, which is located on the library’s second floor.

The New York Public Library next appears in the big wedding scene, during which Mr. Big stands Carrie up at the altar. And I should state here that the wedding scene seriously annoyed me. I mean, honestly, how many times can we expect Big to screw up before Carrie leaves him for good???? The SATC writers really need to come up with a new way of creating tension, because the whole Big-breaks-Carrie’s-heart thing was already getting old way back in Season 3. We should be long past that storyline by now, but I digress.

According to the SUPER nice security guard I spoke with, producers had the McGraw Rotunda intricately decorated with thousands upon thousands of flowers and other adornments for the wedding scene, yet none of it was visible in the movie. The only time any of the wedding decorations can be spotted is in the above-pictured blink-and-you’ll miss it scene in which Anthony Marentino (aka Mario Cantone) tells an assistant to keep all of the wedding guests off of the main stairwell.

The scene in which Mr. Big tells Carrie via telephone that he “couldn’t get out of the car” and that he will not be going through with the wedding was filmed in the library’s Astor Hall area, just off of the main lobby.

Miranda (aka Cynthia Nixon) and Charlotte (aka Kristin Davis) immediately grab Carrie and rush her out of the library’s northernmost front door.

And, while I was stalking the library, I, of course, just had to reenact the scene in which a devastated Carrie drops her cell phone after finding out that Big has stood her up.

Sex and the City: The Movie was hardly the first production to film at the library, though. The building was also the site of the benefit gala in the Season 3 episode of Gossip Girl titled “Ex-Husbands and Wives”

In the 1961 movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Paul Varjak (aka George Peppard) and Holly Golightly (aka Audrey Hepburn) stop into the library during their “things we’ve never done before” day. And while the real life exterior of the library appeared in that scene, I cannot say for certain that the actual interior was also used. The interior scenes quite possibly may have been filmed on a studio soundstage. The library also appeared in a later scene in the movie as the spot where Paul first tells Holly that he loves her. And I just have to say here that I find it absolutely amazing that Audrey Hepburn’s costumes are still stylish today, almost five decades after Breakfast at Tiffany’s was filmed! I mean, how adorable is the orange jacket pictured above? But, again, I digress.

In the original Spider-Man movie, Uncle Ben (aka Cliff Robertson) drops off Peter Parker (aka Tobey Maguire) at the library, where he is supposedly going to do some studying. Peter instead goes to a wrestling match dressed as Spider-Man. When Ben later comes to pick Peter up, he gets killed outside of the library’s main entrance.

Jenna Rink (aka Jennifer Garner) and Matt Flamhaff (aka Mark Ruffalo) stage part of their “Class of 2004” photo shoot in front of the New York Public Library in fave movie 13 Going On 30.

In 1997’s Picture Perfect, the library was the site of the Gulden’s Mustard party where Kate Mosley (aka my girl Jennifer Aniston) first becomes disillusioned with the advertising world.

And while a large portion of the movie The Day After Tomorrow was set in the New York Public Library, no filming actually took place there. Instead producers built a replica of the library’s interior on a studio soundstage that they later destroyed during the massive flood scenes. According to the security guard that I spoke with, set designers spent weeks taking measurements of the interior of the library so that it could be exactly replicated for the filming.

In The Thomas Crown Affair, the inside of the library stood in for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as the Met refused to let any interior scenes be shot on the premises.

The first Ghostbusters movie actually opens with a shot of the New York Public Library and its famous stone lions, who are named Patience and Fortitude. The library has also appeared in the movies On The Town, Pickup on South Street, A Thousand Clowns, The Clock, King Kong, and You’re a Big Boy Now, and in the television series Kings.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The New York Public library is located on the corner of Fifth Avenue and West 42nd Street in New York City. It is open to the public daily.

November 13, 2009December 6, 2013

The Central Park Boathouse Cafe

One of the locations that I was most excited about stalking while in New York last month was a little restaurant named the Central Park Boathouse Cafe, also known as the Loeb Boathouse. And although I’ve stalked this location once before – and even blogged about it – because the restaurant is not open for business during the winter months when we usually visit New York, I’d never been able to actually eat there. Until my most recent trip to the Big Apple, that is. This year, because my parents had only ever seen Manhattan during the cold winter months, we decided to change things up a bit and schedule our annual NYC vacation in early October. And I couldn’t have been more excited, as that meant that I’d FINALLY be able to grab a bite to eat at the famous Boathouse Cafe! 🙂

The first Central Park Boathouse was originally built in 1873 by park designer Calvert Vaux and cost $2,360 to construct. Vaux’s design consisted of a two-story Gothic inspired structure with open terraces lining the second level. For over eighty years, the Boathouse provided park-dwellers with a place to dock and store their vessels, grab a bite to eat, or just simply people-watch. But, in the 1950s it became clear that the eighty year old structure was in desperate need of a renovation. Thanks to a $305,000 donation from American Metal Company founder Carl M. Loeb and a $100,000 supplement from the Parks foundation, the original Boathouse was torn down and a new building was assembled in its place. The new structure, which was dubbed the Loeb Boathouse and was constructed in the neo-classical style by designer Stuart Constable, opened in March of 1954 and remains standing to this day. Although a bit more upscale than its predecessor, the Loeb Boathouse still provides visitors with a place to grab a bite to eat or an evening cocktail, rent a rowboat, or just simply take in the beautiful park scenery.

Because the Loeb Boathouse is so incredibly picturesque, it has, of course, been featured countless times over the years in various movie and television productions. With its lakeside setting, frequent rowboat passersby, and view of of the park and Manhattan skyscrapers in the distance, it’s really no wonder why producers have returned to film there time and time again.

Just inside the Boathouse’s main entrance is a large display of photographs from the many filmings that have taken place there over the years. So love it!

And, let me tell you, I just about died when I noticed an old picture of my girl Marilyn Monroe on the wall! As it turns out, though, according to the hostess that I talked to, the picture was not actually from a movie that was filmed on the premises, but was a candid that was taken while Marilyn rowed a boat one evening on the nearby Central Park Lake. You can just make out the outline of the Boathouse above her left shoulder in the photograph. So cute!

Ostensibly missing from the Boathouse’s picture wall, though, was a photograph of fave show Sex and the City, which filmed a VERY memorable scene from the Season 3 episode entitled “Cock A Doodle Do” at the restaurant. When I asked the hostess about it she said, “Sex and the City was filmed here? Really?” LOL LOL LOL In the episode, Carrie reluctantly agrees to a lunch date with Mr. Big at the waterside cafe, but, as often happens with those two characters, trouble, of course, ensues. Just before Carries enters the restaurant, she stops outside to make a quick call to Miranda on a nearby payphone. During the course of their conversation, Miranda makes Carrie promise that no matter what happens during the lunch she will NOT let Big kiss her. (On a side note – I tried to stalk Carrie’s payphone, but, unfortunately, it was nowhere to be found, which leads me to believe that it was either a prop that was brought in solely for the filming or it was a real payphone that was removed sometime after the filming took place. Such a bummer!)

Carrie then proceeds to enter the restaurant and spots Big waiting for her in the Bar & Grill area, which is pretty much the exact spot where my family and I sat while dining there. 🙂

Upon Carrie’s arrival, Big immediately goes to kiss her and, in backing away to avoid him, Carrie winds up falling into the water, pulling Big down with her. The two immediately collapse into fits of laughter until Carrie realizes that her Christian Dior purse has gone missing, at which point Big screams out “I’ll get it!” and then proceeds to heroically dive under the water to save the purse . . .

. . . with the whole rest of the restaurant looking on. LOL LOL LOL So love that episode! 🙂

So, of course, when I first visited the Cafe back in 2005, I just had to take a picture reenacting that scene. Too bad I couldn’t also reenact Carrie’s Richard Tyler dress from that scene, too! LOL 🙂

The Boathouse is also the spot where Sally lunched with her friends, one of whom was Carrie Fisher, at the beginning of the 1989 romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally.

In the more recent 27 Dresses, the Boathouse figures prominently as the place where Katherine Heigl’s character’s parents were married and where she also intends to someday hold her own wedding. As fate would have it, though, her younger sister gets engaged first and books the restaurant for her wedding instead. Towards the end of the movie, a scene takes place at the Boathouse in which Katherine attends a food tasting for the upcoming nuptials with her secret crush, who also just so happens to be her sister’s fiancé, Edward Burns.

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The Boathouse also appeared in the 2005 movie Little Manhattan and in an episode of the Showtime series Nurse Jackie. The upcoming Drew Barrymore/Justin Long movie entitled Going the Distance also apparently did some recent filming at the Boathouse and a fake Boathouse set was even built in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park this past summer for the Tina Fey/Steve Carell comedy Date Night.

Besides being a filming location, the boathouse has also long been a favorite dining spot for celebrities. In recent years, stars like Lindsay Lohan, Becky Newton, Orlando Bloom, and Victoria’s Secret model Miranda Kerr have all been spotted eating at the Cafe. The Boathouse has also played host to numerous celebrity events, including the premiere after-parties for the movies Pride and Prejudice, Mamma Mia, and My Sister’s Keeper.

And while the Boathouse was at the very top of my list of locales to stalk during this year’s trip, as fate would have it, we actually got “stuck” there after being caught in a brief rainstorm while walking through Central Park. Because the Cafe was the nearest shelter we came to and because it was on my stalking list, we decided to kill two birds with one stone and ducked inside. 🙂 Thankfully the rainstorm didn’t last more than a few minutes and once it was over we immediately grabbed seats on the patio in the Boathouse’s Bar & Grill area (pictured above) and ordered up a few cocktails. And, I have to say, the place was A-MA-ZING! It is worth a visit just for the setting alone! I honestly can’t recommend stalking the Boathouse Cafe enough! It has to be one of my favorite places in all of New York. It is the absolute PERFECT place to spend a sunny – or even a not so sunny, as was the case for me – Manhattan afternoon.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Central Park Boathouse Cafe is located at East 72nd Street and Park Drive North in Central Park. The restaurant is seasonal and is only open from April through November. You can visit their website here.