New rule: If a restaurant’s chef is made out of fiberglass, you might want to walk away. It’s beyond us why any self-respecting establishment would put one of these schmendricks on duty, much less keep him there even after he’s been so gruesomely handicapped that he looks like he should be begging for change — but on West 42nd Street, Monetti’s Pizza is married to the idea of its Italian chef and, a block away, the Bagel Bar at 360 West 42nd has been 100 percent committed to its synthetic maitre d’. And why shouldn’t they be? These things go for $1,300!
The Italian chef has had his hand taken off and his forearms severed— at various points his minders have surgically reattached his left arm with masking tape and given him a scarf to cover up a gaping wound in his shoulder. Jeeves, meanwhile, also seems to have had his hand blown off, but still he remained outside for drunken tourists to hump while their friends took photos. Now, however, Jeeves is locked inside of the empty store like a hostage, holding a piece of paper that indicates that the Bagel Bar has “CLOSED,” as if the FOR RENT sign that just went up wasn’t indicator enough. Really, we should be happy that at least one of these guys is off the street (though honestly, we’d have preferred the Italian chef— and with him the mutilated Italian chef outside of Sal’s Pizzeria, among others). And yet somehow we’re a little bit sad. We’ll miss you, Jeeves— may you never be replaced by a meerkat sculpture.
