With special guests
Bar Oliver, Chris Black's Friday, How Long Gone live, The Corner Store, Stockholm, Fort Greene listings, Sunset Marquis, best new bars, MORE
THE ASK • Prime Real Estate
Debuting next month in this space: the FOUNDLISTING. Do you or your clients have a for-sale property or new development you’d like to promote to our very attractive audience of New Yorkers who purchase real estate? Drop us a line at sales@foundny.com.
BARS • First Round
Cool kids corner
If you had Chinatown’s Chatham Square as fall 2024’s hipster restaurant and bar scene epicenter, please collect your winnings at the window. First came Bridges. Now, across the square on the oddly triangular corner of St. James Place and Oliver Street, we welcome Bar Oliver.
Arriving just after its 530p opening on a recent weeknight, I easily found a seat at the long, stainless steel-topped bar that runs down one side of the space. High-tops and tables line the other side, before giving way to a couple of red leather booths in the back. The vibe of the room is excellent. And the looming question of whether this is more bar or restaurant was answered when we placed our food and drink order, as the bartender handed us a numbered placard, then asked for a credit card. Bar!
“You can’t go wrong with vermouth on tap,” my friend remarked after being informed of its availability. He took that route successfully, while I opted for a Txakoli from the wines by the glass list, a Spanish white as crisp and mineral as they come. (Bar Oliver’s booze is limited to wine and beer; they’re also serving coffee starting at 8a for the neighborhood’s early risers.)
It may not be a restaurant, but Bar Oliver does serve good food — specifically, Basque-inspired tapas. Although there are ways to fashion a full dinner (with, primarily, a dry-aged ribeye served with fries), we went with a bunch of pintxo and tapas. Highlights included anchovy on a slice of bread with soft egg and green pepper relish, a do-it-yourself pan con tomate, and a generous plate of jamon iberico.
As the evening started getting going, the bar filled up — by 7p, a large group of friends was jostling against my bar seat, mumbling apologies. Turning to look out the big front windows, I could make out Bridges, no doubt thrumming across the square. The buzz is building. –Lockhart Steele
→ Bar Oliver (Chinatown) • 1 Oliver St • Tues-Sun, 8a-close, Mon 8a-3p • Reserve (walk-ins welcome).
GOODS & SERVICES • FOUND Sponsor
Water & all that we love
Ryan and Arjan here, the co-founders of Jolie, a beauty wellness company focused on purifying the quality of one’s shower water for better skin and hair. We’re both fans and readers of FOUND, which is why we decided to sponsor this newsletter to reach like-minded folks like you.
As much as we love discussing water’s impact on skin and hair, we’re equally enamored by the connection of water to all else that we love in life — art, coffee, surfing, food, oysters, ceramics, and so much more. That’s why we created a fun video series, Water &, which looks at these topics through the lens of water. Some highlights:
We spent an early morning in Montauk with artist Joe Henry Baker who used the salty ocean water to paint with and wet his canvases, resulting in a crystallization in the painting as it dried.
We spent an evening with Esben Piper, the founder of the renowned Danish coffee company, La Cabra, at their Soho location in New York. Did you know that the parts per million of minerals in water (or the water’s “hardness”) made to brew La Cabra’s coffee is finely tuned to extract flavor while not making the coffee taste sour?
We joined designer Cynthia Rowley for a morning surf out east on Long Island, where the water is both a calming force for her and “balance” to her planned out, calendared work days.
We’ve always loved oysters, but we loved them even more once we started spending time with both the Billion Oyster Project and Montauk Pearl Oyster’s Mike Martinsen. Oysters clean the water by filtering water as they eat, removing ecosystem-destroying pollutants such as nitrogen. They also act as a natural storm barrier and help foster biodiversity. (The Billion Oyster Project, our non-profit of choice, is restoring the oyster reefs in New York’s harbors to clean the Hudson and East Rivers. Last we checked, 122 million oysters have been restored in New York’s harbor over the last 10 years.)
You can watch all of our Water & videos on our website here.
We worked with these partners because we think they are the best at what they do. If you are thinking about buying a Jolie, we encourage you to do so via the link below. We are picking five FOUND buyers to gift a year’s worth of La Cabra coffee to make at home.
The role of water is all around us. –Ryan Babenzien & Arjan Singh
→ Shop: The Jolie Filtered Showerhead (Jolie) • available in brushed gold, modern chrome, brushed steel, jet black, and vibrant red • $148.
CULTURE & LEISURE • Friday Routine
Friends in high places
CHRIS BLACK • consultant and podcaster • Done To Death Projects, Public Announcement, How Long Gone
Neighborhood you work and live in: Soho
It’s Friday afternoon, how are you rolling into the weekend?
The fun part of the podcast is the live version of the show we take around the country and sometimes abroad. My podcast partner Jason is in town for our show this Saturday at Webster Hall. We like to bring out bands and comedians whose work we enjoy. Sam Jay will open and we'll have some other special guests. We don’t eat before, can’t go on stage full. We have an afterparty at The Standard, East Village. It’s going to be a long night. But I usually try to stick to a routine as much as possible.
Fridays are usually pretty mellow since we don’t record an episode of How Long Gone, and no one seems to work past noon anymore. I’ll wake up around six and get on Twitter immediately, check my email, add links to the Public Announcement daily newsletter, and have a Chameleon Cold Brew (uncut) at home before putting on my finest Nike Dri-FIT garments and heading to Equinox on Prince Street. My trainer in Los Angeles, Hunter Seagroves, wrote a serious kettlebell program for me. It’s challenging, but also helps me avoid waiting for a bench.
If I have a meeting, I go to The Odeon or Sant Ambroeus for lunch. I try to hit Australian import Thisbowl on Bleecker if I am solo. It’s the best version of the email-job lunch that exists. Late afternoon, I get a coffee from Cafe Integral, the best in the city, a regular drip, or an iced quad cortado with some of their homemade almond milk. Then, I try to finish any work and read a bit, primarily new fiction. I like to keep up.
Where are you drinking or dining this weekend?
The Corner Store on West Broadway, made famous by Taylor Swift, is a new place owned by The Catch Group. The whole scene fascinates me, and I can't wait to pay $30 for a shrimp cocktail. Bridges on Bowery is a beautiful room and the comté tart is banging. Tolo in Dimes Square for a kaofu salad, Gemma at The Bowery Hotel for scrambled eggs, Apollo for a bagel, Upside for pizza, and Diner in Williamsburg if someone drags me to Brooklyn.
How about a little leisure or culture?
A large portion of my friend circle is musicians. We speak to many of them on How Long Gone, but I also got my start in the music business and went to punk and hardcore shows since I was 13. My wife and I borrowed an orange Aston Martin SUV a little while back and drove to Philadelphia to see my friend Katie, aka Waxahatchee, play at The Fillmore. She just got nominated for a Grammy for her album “Tiger’s Blood.” She deserves to win. Recently, I saw The Killers at the 02 in London, Father John Misty in Grand Rapids, Charli XCX and Troye Sivan at the Forum in Los Angeles, Maggie Rogers at Madison Square Garden, and MJ Lenderman at The Music Hall of Williamsburg. It’s fun to take in the spectacle and see what your friends can do.
Any weekend getaways?
Charleston is my favorite city in the South (I’m from Atlanta), and we visit as often as possible. There are great hotels. The Dewberry and The Pinch are my favorites. You’re 20 minutes from the beach, and the food is incredible (FIG, Little Jack’s Tavern, Vern’s, The Ordinary). The flight is about two hours. If you take the Delta 6a return, you can be back in the city before 9a.
What was your last great vacation?
I go to Stockholm and Copenhagen a few times a year and love them both for different reasons. They’re both incredibly charming and full of good-looking people. They’ve also given us so many great clothing brands: Mfpen, Sunflower, Our Legacy, Acne, etc. It’s a part of the world with a very distinct flavor that really resonates with me.
GETAWAYS LINKS: Inside the new spa at Inness • Mirbeau Beacon breaks ground, sked for early ’26 opening • The Manner hotel is NYC’s ‘highly fashionable new living room’ • Everything you need to know about flying private • Shoulder season goes mainstream.
REAL ESTATE • First Mover
Three for-sale properties in Fort Greene that came to market in the last 45 days.
→ 171 South Portland Ave #3A (Fort Greene) • 3BR/2BA, 1415 SF condo • Ask: $2.195M • in 9-unit building with balcony over gardens • Days on market: 16 • Monthly taxes: $1095; Monthly cc: $852 • Agent: Jessica Henson, Compass.
→ 144 Vanderbilt Ave #4D (Fort Greene) • 3BR/3BA, 1896 SF condo • Ask: $3.495M • new dev duplex with 534 SF private rooftop garden • Days on market: 9 • Monthly taxes: $2448; Monthly cc: $1508 • Agent: Zia O'Hara, Elliman.
→ 51 South Portland Ave (Fort Greene, above) • 7BR/4BA, 4727 SF multi-family • Ask: $5.7M • 1869 brownstone with two apartments on upper floors • Days on market: 43 • Monthly taxes: $1294 • Agent: Nichole Thompson-Adams, Compass.
REAL ESTATE LINKS: 70-story rental The Orchard, tallest building in Queens, tops out • Is Jersey City the solution to NYC’s housing problem? • NYC luxury deals tick up post-election • US home sales up YoY for first time in three years • $100M home sales are the new $50M home sales.
CULTURE & LEISURE • Shamrock Series
Notre Dame v Army • Yankee Stadium (Bronx) • Sat @ 7p, $338 per
Modest Mouse • Brooklyn Steel (Williamsburg) • Sat @ 9p • GA, $70 per
Dave Matthews Band • Madison Square Garden (Midtown South) • Sat @ 730p • section 107, $420 per
CULTURE & LEISURE LINKS: New exhibit: two decades of Roman & Williams lighting in Tribeca • Immersive cirque show planned for lobby of 48 Wall • For $6.2M, ‘the banana and duct tape can be replaced as needed’ • The most influential people in art.
BARS • The Nines
New bars
The Nines are FOUND's distilled lists of NYC's best. Additions or subtractions? Hit reply or found@foundny.com.
Clemente Bar (Flatiron, above), EMP’s dual-concept clarified cocktail cocktail lounge + eight-seat omakase counter