Stayin' Alive

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Union Square Café, Now 25

Photo: Quentin Bacon/Union Square Cafe

In case you haven’t been keeping up with Union Square Café’s 25th-anniversary media push, let’s get you up to speed: Paper interviewed Danny Meyer (he says “New Yorkers are definitely nicer now” compared to the days when he thought that “you had to come from the Midwest or the South to be a nice person”); Carmen Quagliata and Michael Romano helped Josh Ozersky compare the opening menu with the current one, and showed off dishes from both; Esquire did an “oral history” with Michael Romano and Danny Meyer (Meyer thinks the initially mostly female kitchen staff lent “a natural sense of nurturing”); Meyer penned a letter for the newsletter in which he managed to use the word hospitality only twice; and finally, the restaurant itself posted a list of distinguished alumni, such as Jason Denton, Peter Hoffman, Dan Kluger, and Dan Silverman. Congratulations, y’all!

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Union Square Café, Now 25