New FiDi location of Alamo Drafthouse opens soon with museum and bar
The first Manhattan location of wildly popular dine-in movie theater Alamo Drafthouse will now have a bar and museum called the Press Room. It’s located in the 28 Liberty Street tower in FiDi, the same building with Danny Meyer’s Manhatta, and will feature more than 50,000 letterpress film advertising plates, ranging from the 1930s to the 1980s. Drinks-wise, the Press Room will have nearly 50 beers and cocktails, plus cocktails made with a French press. Board games will be available for visitors, too.
The Austin-based chain, which also has a Brooklyn location, is going hard on that letterpress archive. On weekends, the bar will be using its vintage letterpress to create “souvenir postcards” based on the memorabilia.
The new theater itself will have 12 screens. Both are expected to open later this year.
In other news:
— Why would a banker leave the high margins of the finance world to open a restaurant? Sean Feeney of Lilia, Yiming Wang and Xian Zhang of Cafe China, Juan Correa of Llama Inn, Ahmass Fakahany of Altamarea Group, and others dish to Bloomberg on how the intensity of the two industries are actually quite similar.
— Our sympathies to the staff of the Little Owl in the West Village, who have to field questions from tons of Friends fans who don’t buy anything.
— Breezy taco chain Tacombi will open a new location in Long Island City next year.
— The Times Hungry City column highlights Carroll Gardens Thai restaurant Boran, where chef Suwat Chalothron is obsessive about making his own versions of building blocks like peanut dipping sauce and kapi.
— Over at Tables for Two in the New Yorker, critic Hannah Goldfield digs the burger at Billy Durney’s new Red Hook Tavern — but she found that “there’s something a little disingenuous about the place,” which isn’t as accessible as the old-school taverns that it aims to emulate.
— True brunch goals: