Earlier this spring, the Manhattan restaurant Jack’s Wife Freda upgraded to a bigger space in Soho that stretches around the corner on Lafayette and Spring, two doors down from their former spot that was much cozier in a way that veered between charming and annoying depending on the time of day and mood I was in. Ever since they first opened in 2011, I’ve always thought of Jack’s Wife Freda as a nice change of pace when I didn’t want to deal with the sort of crowd that you encounter at a Keith McNally establishment. McNally places (counting the Odeon even though he hasn’t been involved with it for years) tend to serve as really nice places to just pop into and see if I can get a table. The trouble is that I don’t always want the sort of French bistro-inspired stuff a place like Balthazar serves. Jack’s Wife Freda works because the food is a little easier on your body. It’s billed as a “Mediterranean” place, but I often find that term is used when there’s some worry that saying the places that actually influence the menu might turn off potential diners. A better way to sum up the food Jack’s Wife Freda serves is from a New York review quote the restaurant has on its site: “South African Israeli Jewish Grandmother Cuisine.” People love the peri-peri chicken, but I’m constantly surprised by how much I like their schnitzel. You’d think it would be so easy to make, and yet, some places just don’t get it right.
Before they moved to the bigger space, Jack’s Wife Freda simply existed to me. It was there, it was always good, I somehow own a copy of their cookbook that I’ve used once and never again. I like the place and will still go even though when they celebrated the new space with a little Wes Anderson rip-off video (complete with Anderson collaborator and all-around good dude Waris Ahluwalia starring alongside Leandra Medine Cohen), it felt to me as if the place was preparing to become something like the millennial TGI Fridays, a very Manhattan-centric place that eventually grows into something totally different from what it originally was. (If you don’t know the history of TGI Fridays, here you go.) Whether or not the plan is to branch out and have a Jack’s Wife Freda in every city where 20-somethings claim to not come from money before spending countless dollars on their dad’s Amex, I can’t tell you. And yeah, I sometimes walk past the place and think it’s pretty much filled with tourists, Gen. X parents visiting their kids at NYU and people who got lost trying to find that Dimes Square place they read about in the new issue of AARP, and that makes me not want to go there as much as I used to like the place. But, on the other hand, Jack’s Wife Freda gets something very right that I find enjoyable: they have the outdoor chairs facing the sidewalk. It feels very Parisian. I wish everywhere that had a similar seating arrangement did things this way. One of my favorite writers, Sloane Crosley, also noticed places are starting to catch on and do this around the city.

One of the big problems with this sort of arrangement is restaurants depend on turnover. And if customers are just sitting, enjoying a little drink and watching New Yorkers walk past them, then getting them out of their seats so new customers can sit down becomes a little more difficult. Rent, as you may have heard, is very, very, very, very high in New York City. It’s always expensive, but especially so these days. Keeping the cash flowing can often mean life or death for some restaurants, so when we take up space, it probably puts a hurting on the bottom line and that’s too bad.
But with the pandemic, things have slowly changed. Some places have become more open to letting customers sit a little longer, and have provided space outdoors for it. I’ve mostly seen it in restaurants and bars. Up the street from me, Leland has become my spot for a late-afternoon vermouth (they do it with a little seltzer and some olives, it’s very nice) or I’ll walk to the Bearded Lady and have a beer. When I go around other neighborhoods, the chill, almost Euro cafe vibes are noticeable in other places and those are the spots I find myself drawn to lately.
Right now, I’m personally hoping to find a new coffee shop near me for my morning espresso, a little treat I started giving myself before the pandemic made that ritual basically impossible for a few years. I think about old Italian or Cuban guys I’ve seen throughout my life in Brooklyn or Miami, or maybe some shot of the Sopranos crew outside the pork store. They’re drinking their espresso or Café Cubano, just soaking up the moments, enjoying life. There’s something so chill about that and I want more opportunities for it. I’m guessing I won’t get that at a soulless spot like Blank Street Coffee, but I also don’t mind walking a few extra minutes up to Park Slope to go to a place like Cafe Regular.
But that’s what I’ve been looking for these days. I was shocked when I went to L.A. and one of the few places with the sort of sidewalk vibe I’m looking for was all the way in Eagle Rock at Capri Club. Everybody I know in L.A. is obsessed with the place, so I’m guessing the limited seating out in front of the bar is highly-prized real estate. But if I happen to be back in the area right around opening time and I can grab one of those spots to enjoy a little aperitivo hour action as the sun sets over California, then I’m sure as hell going to do it. I’m an outdoor guy now.