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Caffeine-Free Coffee Shop Is the First Sign of the Cultural Apocalypse

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Arby's is headed to New York, plus more restaurant news and gossip from around New York City.

[Empellon al Pastor, a fine place to grab tacos this weekend. It's kinda spooky.]
[Empellon al Pastor, a fine place to grab tacos this weekend. It's kinda spooky.]
Daniel Krieger

— New York now has a caffeine-free coffee shop called Swiss Water Coffee Studio. It's located in a gas station that's going to be demolished soon. The cafe's Facebook page explains: "Be guided through a sensory experience that includes espresso, hand crafted manually brewed coffee and cold brew options. There will also be educational elements of how we remove caffeine from coffee with our innovative and unique 100% chemical free process. "

[Swiss Water Coffee Studio]
[Serena Dai]

The cafe is a pop-up that's open from now through November 7 on the corner of Lafayette and East Houston Street. If you stop by, let us know how that goes.

Arby's is coming back to Manhattan.  The chain is opening a new outpost on the corner of 40th Street and Eighth Avenue. Arby's tried and failed to break into the Manhattan market about a decade ago — a location inside the Manhattan Mall closed back in 2008. The chain briefly inhabited the corpse of Gage & Tollner in Downtown Brooklyn. Currently, Arby's has a few outposts in Queens.

— Tomorrow is pierogi tasting day at East Village Meat Market.

Ligaya Mishan is a big fan of Schaller's Stube, a new sausage shop on the Upper East Side: "In homage to a Reuben sandwich, an all-beef wiener (with skin that talks back) comes with Swiss cheese, sauerkraut and Stube sauce, whose ingredients the owners will not divulge but which approaches Russian dressing, without Thousand Island’s pesky sweetness. For a take on Vietnamese banh mi, bauernwurst, a coarse farmer’s sausage, is a clever evocation of the traditional mix of salty ham and pâté."

A stand at Broadway Bites in Midtown called Hai Street Kitchen is serving sushi burritos filled with fried chicken. Midtown Lunch is not impressed.

— Astoria pub William Hallet is dressing up as Bob's Burgers for Halloween. Meanwhile, Alameda in Greenpoint is hosting a Bob's Burgers-themed party tomorrow night. The two events are totally unrelated.

Christina Izzo gives four stars out of five to Kat & Theo's, the new Flatiron District restaurant from El Bulli/Momofuku veteran Paras Shah: "The meal’s standout is the richly glazed, dark-as-the-lighting lamb shank ($34), downright vampy with plump figs, hunks of smoked lamb belly and a hash of roasted fall vegetables. It’s definitely not El Bulli, but it’s an exciting start."

— And finally, here's a crash course in fancy glassware from Momofuku's wine director Jordan Salcito: