Welcome to The Brunch Bunch, where we go to some of the city’s hottest brunch spots and ask the crowds outside why, exactly, they are waiting in line. Today, Veselka in the East Village.
Veselka is one of the East Village's most beloved restaurants. It's packed for lunch during the week, filled with drunk revelers trying to sober up late at night, and it draws huge crowds for brunch on the weekends. Yesterday at 1:30 pm, the people waiting outside were a mix of locals and out-of-towners, some of whom had traveled a long way for those pierogies and blintzes. Curiously, Stage Restaurant, another solid diner just down the block, had no wait at all at this time. But let's meet the people that were standing outside of Veselka, shall we?
Name: Margaret
Profession: Intern at Seventeen
How long have you been waiting? I would say...20 minutes?
There's no wait at Stage Restaurant, just down the street. Would you ever consider going there? Yeah, I would. Sure.
How long would you have to wait before deciding to go somewhere else? I don't know, it depends. I would definitely say like 30 minutes.
What did you do last night? We went to a bar, I'm not sure what the name of it is.
What are your plans for today? I'm going to run some errands with my roommate, and then I'll probably take a nap and do some work.
Names: Leanne and Keeman
Profession: Medieval historians
How long have you been waiting? Leanne: 15 minutes so far.
There's no wait at Stage Restaurant, just down the street. Would you ever consider going there? Leanne: I don't know. Veselka is an old favorite, so we'd like to fit it in if we can.
How long would you have to wait before deciding to go somewhere else? Keeman: Probably over 20 minutes?
What did you do last night? Leanne: We were at a conference in Princeton.
What are your plans for today? Keeman: We're going to the Met.
Name: Jerry
Profession: Administrator in a nursing home
How long have you been waiting? About 20 minutes.
There's no wait at Stage Restaurant, just down the street. Would you ever consider going there? We might. The store my wife is shopping at right now is just down the block, so it's so convenient here. Plus this restaurants has some things we can't get in Westchester — the pierogies, blintzes, things like that.
How long would you have to wait before deciding to go somewhere else? I'm usually pretty impatient, but my wife is shopping just down the block at Eileen Fisher, so I'll have to wait for her anyway. But normally, I wouldn't wait more than a half an hour.
What are your plans for today? We're probably going shopping, and then we're going to see my son's apartment. He just moved in, and we want to see what it looks like. Then we'll probably go shopping for some clothes for him, and then we're going to dinner with some friends at The Turkish Kitchen. We're meeting a few other couples there. We usually like to spend one day a week in the city. We usually come on Sunday because the parking's so much easier, but it just worked out today, because that's when our friends could meet us.
Names: Michelle and Winston
Professions: Paralegal and real estate agent
How long have you been waiting? Winston: 15 minutes.
There's no wait at Stage Restaurant, just down the street. Would you ever consider going there? Michelle: I've never heard of it. Wintson: Yeah, I've never been either.
How long would you have to wait before deciding to go somewhere else? Michelle : About 45 minutes.
What did you do last night? Michelle : We were kind of lame. We ate Ben & Jerry's ice cream and stayed in.
What are your plans for today? Wintson: I have to go to a studio, and do some work there, some music stuff. I'll be working on this electro-pop stuff, but I do everything, whatever it is they want to record.
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