To Dine For: Baked Potato Stand

Oh, hey you! Welcome to the grand opening. You just missed the ribbon cutting, so you won’t be in any of the photos with Bloomberg and Isaac Mizrahi. Well, at least now you know what’s been keeping me busy lo these many months. Sorry I didn’t return your calls. It’s just so hard opening a business, ya know? I mean, can you believe it? One day, you’re baked with your friends going to see a movie, lamenting the lack of readily available baked potatoes from a vendor, and then voila, you’re opening your own baked potato stand. It just made sense, I mean you can get frites, hot dogs, so why not a really good baked potato?

Of course, it helped to partner with Danny Meyer. He totally got “our vision,” ya know? He sees it as an extension of Shake Shack, and the press has been unbelievable. New York magazine, the Times magazine, Eater, and on and on.

It’s sort of like when you followed Phish around, selling vegetarian burritos at shows…only with global branding and (we’re pretty much assured) a two-star review from Frank Bruni.

We were going to think of a clever name, like “Spud Shack” or “Ba*ked” but we opted for simplicity. I’m so tired of clever. I just want to provide a quality product to the food-conscious masses, so “Baked Potato Stand” it is.

Listen, I’d love to sneak you to the front of the line, but I don’t want to upset the people who’ve been waiting, literally, for hours to be served. We’re trying to build a loyal customer base. One guy actually camped out in front of the stand all night, if you can believe.

So, while you’re waiting (it’ll be about an hour or so from the end of the line, but totally worth it) peruse the menu. You can have any of the classic add-ons, sour cream, butter, chives, bacon bits, or go a little upscale and experiment. If you’re really adventurous, and not worried about cost, try the baked with Gruyère and truffles. It’s to dine for!

To Dine For: Hot Lunch

Oh, hey, fancy seeing you here at the Greenmarket. I didn’t think you cooked. Do you even have a kitchen in your studio? I thought you just had a hot plate and a folder of take-away menus.

Oh,you know me, I’m just picking up some grass-fed goat sausage and organic apple butter. Oh say, you like to eat out, have you heard of Hot Lunch? No, not what you’re thinking, silly. It’s this amazing new restaurant slash dining experience. I just went there with my “eating club.” God, that sounds so pretentious. We’re not “foodies” or anything, it’s just a couple of dedicated friends who get together and try new restaurants. Anyway, Hot Lunch. It’s like, based on, like, a school cafeteria. It’s a-maz-ing. Seriously. They actually rent out space in a public school after-hours, for that authentic feel, down on Avenue B. They donate money or something to the department of education, so it’s totally generous, you know? The rumor is they’re going to start serving brunch on the weekends, so fingers crossed.

All the servers and hostesses are these pubescent Eastern European Wilhelmina Models, but they put them in fat suits and hair nets. Some even have, like, fake moles with hair and stuff, you know, for the “lunch lady” look. So, they have variations on the standard cafeteria fare, but it’s all first-class ingredients. Like, you have to try the tots, which are similar to tater tots but made with polenta. Or definitely order the Kobe beef sloppy joe. It’s fish on Fridays, natch, line-caught sea bass usually. Oh, and the “mystery meat” is a must-do. Last week it was Argentinean-style skirt steak.

So you know, the tables are pretty segregated, it may bring back some unpleasant developmental period flashbacks. Ha ha. Like, There’s the jock table, I totally saw Derek Jeter there last week, and the newspaper table had Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich. Kimora Lee Simmons was there with her fashion posse. You have to make reservations, and seating is based on your career. Gosh, I don’t think there’s an off-off Broadway actor section, come to think of it. But Streep and Schreiber were there last week at the Broadway Drama Club table. They were so cute, doing improv skits and making faces in their mashed sweet potatoes. It’s so fun to, like, revisit those times, don’t you think? To be able to look back and laugh at all that popularity drama over a goat cheese and artichoke pizza and a carton of soy milk?

Anyway, you should totally try to go, it’s to dine for!