Tourist Bait

Cha Cha’s Has Really Outdone Itself With This Teddy-Bear-Stuffing Machine

Photo: Daniel Maurer

Sometimes in their effort to lure in customers, restaurants become completely unhinged. It happened to Kenka when it put that weird goblin thing outside. And now it has happened to Cha Cha’s, a Little Italy eatery that has always been a bit off-kilter. Witness the drinks named after Tony Danza, Tommy Lasorda, Danny DeVito, and Leonard DiCaprio (sadly, libations like the “Frozen Titanic” have gone up $2 in the past months — and it’ll now cost you $15 to get one in a Cha Cha’s souvenir glass). Anyway, what has Cha Cha’s gone and done now? They’ve installed a build-your-own-teddy-bear machine by the bar.

You pay $10 for the bear, $15 for a Spider-man outfit or some such, stuff a hose up the bear’s backside, and fill it with fluff. Sounds crazy, right? Granted not as crazy as this video, in which the whole process is accompanied by dance-tastic house music. Then again, something had to fill the void that Chinatown Fair left nearby.

Cha Cha’s Has Really Outdone Itself With This Teddy-Bear-Stuffing Machine