Brother Jimmy’s UES Morphs Into Ziggy’s, Thistle Hill Tavern to Close Monday, and More Intel

— The Upper East Side location of barbecue mini-chain Brother Jimmy’s closed recently, but the same owners will reopen the space next week as a Mexican seafood restaurant called Ziggy’s. Noah Arenstein, one of the proprietors of Prospect Heights critical darling El Atoradero, is helping to open this new restaurant, which will serve oysters, seafood cocktails, fish platters, nachos, and quesadillas, plus tiki-inspired drinks. It’s slated to open next Monday.

— Park Slope gastropub Thistle Hill Tavern will serve its final meal this Monday, December 19. Earlier this year, Dale Talde, Dave Massoni, and John Bush announced that they were closing this restaurant as well as its sister establishment Pork Slope to focus on their Manhattan hotel projects — including 31st Street hot spot Massoni — and their new venture across the street from the Barclays Center. Pork Slope closed back in October.

— Daily Beast reporter Olivia Nuzzi went to Trump Grill yesterday to check out the scene after the Vanity Fair review, and she saw this:

When Robert Sietsema visited last January, the martini was served in a regular coupe.

— The Today Show staffers had their holiday party at Tao in Midtown yesterday afternoon. At one point during the celebration, all the anchors played a round of "never have I ever."

— Two dog lovers in Brooklyn named Verena Erhart and Lauren Hanlon are raising money on Kickstarter for a proposed restaurant in Prospect Heights or Park Slope called BYOD — an acronym for "bring your own dog." It’s now legal to have dogs in outside patio areas of restaurants, but operators are not supposed to allow them inside the dining room unless they’re service animals. Erhart and Hanlon plan to create one space where the food is prepared and served, and another, separate area where people can play with their dogs, similar to the Brooklyn Cat Cafe. So far, the duo has raised more than $2,500.

— Starbucks returns to Manhattanville with a new location on the corner of 125th Street and Broadway. Harlem Bespoke notes that the coffee mega-chain opened and closed a location in this area a decade ago.

— Hell’s Kitchen NIMBYs tired to convince the members of the CB4 to deny a live music license for local gay bar Rise. The board ultimately decided to approve the paperwork with the stipulations that the owners have to conduct sound tests and wrap up live piano nights at 1 a.m.

— Sebastian Brecht, a chocolatier who worked for Dean & Deluca, is planning a new sweets shop at 63 E. Fourth St. Paper in the window is printed with the words: "Obsessive Chocolate Disorder."

— Post critic Steve Cuozzo hears that Graydon Carter has been quietly shopping around the Monkey Bar space in Midtown.

— Ligaya Mishan loves the Thai food that Sunisa Nitmai is serving at Pata Cafe in Elmhurst, Queens: "Her food tastes of gestures timeworn but never taken for granted, and of honest pleasure in what a handful of ingredients can do. Like the smallest dab of nam prik pao, chiles roasted and simmered into jam, and the scent of torn kaffir lime leaves in tom yum, a clear soup with tomatoes collapsing in its depths and a warmth that settles under the ribs like an expanding cloud."

— And finally, here’s a look at how the Minetta Tavern’s famed Black Label burger is made: