That was fast: F. Martinella is closing

Back in October, Boar's Head decided to try their hand at a retail shop in Downtown Brooklyn with the old-timey sounding and looking "F. Martinella" deli. I guess people weren't eating enough hoagies to cover the $125 a foot rent, 'cause I passed by there this morning and saw guys loading unopened blocks of ham and turkey into a truck. On the way home, my suspicions were confirmed when I saw the windows taped over. Despite the misleading claim that they had been in business since 1949 (Boar's Head was actually started in 1903, and if you count the kiosk at JFK, F. Martinella had been in business only a few years, tops), they actually lasted only 10 months. Ha ha! But is anyone surprised? The food was bland and the neighborhood didn't need another deli (let alone one that was way too fancy for its own britches).

Don't let the neighborhood hit you on the way out, and good riddance.



And just for the record, this is our second food-related scoop concerning the block of Court Street between State and Schermerhorn

[photo credits: brownstoner.com and comestibles.com]

So So Closed

Cafe Dupri, super producer Jermaine Dupri's ode to Applebees (or was it Friday's?) closed recently. Turns out that his So So Def Omelet and Triple Platinum Pancakes sold about as many units as girlfriend Janet Jackson's latest release, Discipline. Making a bad situation even worse, all the employees were stiffed on their final paycheck. Reports are that JD's Mom, the "CEO" of the restaurant, said something like "maybe if they all worked harder, we wouldn't have had to close." Seriously.

On a personal note, I ate breakfast at Cafe Dupri on the morning of my wedding, making it my "final meal" as a single guy. The eggs were so so. They were not def, unfortunately.

Sweet and Sour Chicken is gross.

Not much more to say about this. I've never understood the appeal of this dish. I know it's fried, which in theory makes it a winner, but I've always found Sweet and Sour Chicken to be completely unappealing.

Fried chicken in red goop. I'd rather eat Chop Suey, which is gross and unexplainable in its own right.

Thanks for bearing with me. I've needed to get that off my chest for a very long time.