From: [an eater]
Date: Thursday, February 15, 2007
To: eater complaints dept.
Subject: Getting a Table at Little Owl
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Enough already about little owl. The backlash starts here. I live in the neighborhood and all I every hear about this place is how great it is, but it seems to me to be for all practical purposes, impossible to actually eat there. It’s not like I haven’t tried. The first night they opened I called to see if there was space – oh sure, they said, come on down. We’re BYO for now, they say, so bring a bottle of something nice. 15 minutes later we show up as instructed and are told the wait will be 90 minutes or so. Dave, the weepy guy from Top Chef, is wandering the sidewalk out front pretending (we think) to talk to someone on his cell phone. We ate elsewhere in the neighborhood that night and when we passed Little Owl on the way home a couple of hours later, we noticed Campanaro out front groveling to the Olsen twins who were at the front of a growing line. Sheesh. In the months since, we have tried countless times to eat there. We’ve tried showing up early – and it’s always at least an hour’s wait. I’ve tried reserving well in advance and am told the only table open – ever – is at 5:00pm 6 weeks from now. And they kind of snicker at my naivety for expecting anything other than that. In fact, for the sake of argument, I just looked on Open Table to see when the next available table is to be had –
any time, any day of the week – at Little Owl. And guess what it told me? Never! There is no reservation available, ever! I understand the food is very good. Apparently a nice pork chop. I don’t expect to every try it because at this point I’ve given up trying. In the past year I have – without any real difficulty – managed to book dinner reservations at reasonable times at Per Se, Le Bernardin, Daniel, Nobu (multiple times), Babbo (multiple times), Lupa (multiple times), Waverly (multiple times), hell even El Bulli for Chrissakes, where we’ll be dining in a couple of months. So when we read the story about how they’ve gotten their power fixed in time for valentines day, can there possibly be more than 40 people on the planet to whom this is relevant? There. I feel better now.
· The Eater Complaints Dept. [~E~]
Need to get something off of your chest? It's just down the hall on the left.
UPDATE: For the sake of hearing both sides—
From: [an eater]
Date: Thursday, February 15, 2007
To: eater complaints dept.
Subject: RE: Getting a Table at Little Owl
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Just read the rant on Little Owl. I've never been there, mostly because I live in the East Village and it's all the way over in the WEST Village (the nerve!), but it smelled like bullshit so I checked OpenTable, too. Booked solid tonight, but clicking "Next available day" yielded plenty of results, including a table at 7pm on Friday in March, which I snagged.
Seriously, El-Fucking-Bulli? Without any real difficulty??!! But Little Owl, that's just too hard. I understand it sucks when a neighborhood place gets popular, but this tool should at least be genuine when venting.
There. Feels better.
