The Inhouse Nosh Café Fights City Hall—and WinsWhat if Don Quixote had knocked over the windmill or Sisyphus had gotten over the hump? It wouldn’t be more inspiring than the news that Andy Spitz, owner of the New York Magazine building’s luncheonette, the Inhouse Nosh Café, has won his fight against City Hall. According to Spitz, he made such a powerful case before the Department of Health that they reversed themselves and let the Nosh Café reopen just days after being given 110 points.
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Shuttered Mom-and-Pop Spot Pleads to Powers That Be
The heart-wrenching saga of the Inhouse Nosh Café, the Reason to Love New York that was shuttered by the Department of Health this week, got immeasurably more poignant the other day when we were given a copy of owner Andrew Spitz’s letter to Mayor Bloomberg. Having written a few hopeless missives in our own day, we read on with growing admiration.
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The Health Department Rampage Hits Grub Street Close to Home
We’ve taken a lighthearted attitude to Department of Health closures in the past, but no more: Today, our own beloved Inhouse Nosh Café, immortalized in last year’s Reasons to Love New York issue and a daily source of bialys and good wishes, has been shut down after an inspector found a whopping 110 points’ worth of violations in the tiny canteen.
User’s Guide
Has Assimilation Ruined the Knish?David Katz, a writer given to elegiac moods, just published a column on knishes in the Jewish Quarterly. He decries the decay of the knish, which under the pressure of assimilation went from a delicate mashed-potato pastry to a tough square of deep-fried dough. “There’s a word for these street knishes, which are still sold today, and that word is vile,” Katz pronounces. The column concludes with a paragraph of praise for Yonah Schimmel’s old-time knishery, noted by us recently in our pre-obituary for Gertel’s last week.
