Patsy's is fine!

Super quick update to let everyone know that Hurricane Irene didn't do any significant damage to Patsy's. We're totally fine and back open, but our thoughts and prayers go out to those who were seriously hurt by the hurricane.



 ~ Paul

Hurricane Irene!

Hey everyone,

Quick update to let you know that Patsy's will be closed Saturday and Sunday because of Hurricane Irene. The city has effectively been shut down because the subway and MTA won't be running, and we don't want any of our workers risking themselves by traveling into the city. So, it made much more sense to be closed.

Stay safe, everyone, and hopefully the hurricane blows over without any serious problems!

- Paul

Sal will be on Seriously Sinatra tonight!

Hey all,

Just a quick update - if you have Sirius XM, you'll be able to tune into the Seriously Sinatra channel tonight and hear Sal! He was up in Boston this weekend and recorded a segment with them - it'll air sometime tonight (Saturday) between 7 pm and midnight. It should be a great interview, so if you're able, definitely check it out!

~ Paul

Touring CBS with George Pettignano!

From left to right, that's Peter, myself, and Joe - the three lucky guys who got to tour CBS!

George Pettignano has become a close friend to everyone at Patsy's. Some of you may know him as a singer - in fact, he's sung at the restaurant several times in the past. However, he's also a pretty important executive over at CBS, and the other day he offered to take my younger cousins and I on a tour of the studio!

The inner workings of CBS are naturally pretty impressive. My cousin Joe and I are both massive computer geeks, so we were in awe of the servers that CBS has. I didn't want to take any pictures of those because I wasn't sure if I'd be allowed to, but take my word for it - they had a massive infrastructure. Not only that, George actually showed us the older computers too. The ones where you had to manually plug in and remove wires when you wanted them to do different things. Apparently it was all very cutting edge in the 60's, but compared to the sleek, wireless computer systems they had, it definitely looked antiquated.

We were taken around to a lot of the sets of various shows - from the studio where BET is filmed, to another studio that hosts a variety of shows (such as the marriage ref), to all the various news and day-time T.V. studios, it's amazing how much is housed in the New York offices. The news rooms were particularly impressive, and one of the coolest parts is that several of the cameras are actually controlled by computers, rather than people. (There's even a big red "emergency shut-down" button on each of them, which I found pretty hilarious).

We snagged a picture at the Doppler booth with the CBS Early morning weather man - Pretty cool!

Finally, we got to go inside the Ed Sullivan studio, and see some prep work for the Letterman show. That was really interesting - while we didn't see Letterman come out, we actually saw the writers having a 'round table' of sorts on the stage. They were trying out various gags, seeing what worked and what didn't. It was pretty interesting seeing how some bits they weren't that excited about, but others had them (and everyone watching) cracking up. Then the band came out (including Paul Shaffer) and we got to hear them practicing the songs they'd be playing before and after commercial breaks.

 

When we'd finished touring CBS, it was naturally time to eat, so we swung back to Patsy's and had tons of food! All in all, a pretty good day. ; )

 Incidentally, George will be singing at Feinstein's on August 24th. It's going to be his biggest event yet and he's extremely excited about it. We'll be helping to host it with a four-course dinner that kicks off at 6 pm, and the show gets underway at 8:30. If you're interested, call 212-339-4095 and lock in some seats!

A tribute to Rosemary Clooney

Today marks 9 years that Rosemary Clooney passed away - it's amazing to think that so much time has passed since a great friend of ours left us.

Some time ago, we had a tribute put up on Rosemary Clooney's site. Since this is the anniversary of her passing, it seems appropriate to repost it.

http://rosemaryclooney.net/remembering/tribute/#patsys

It's a great read, so you should definitely check it out, but there's one part I'd like to quote because it sums up our relationship with her particularly well. It's from Anna (my Meema);

""Rosemary started coming to Patsy's when she first got to New York. My father took such a liking to her, he told her when she was struggling to find work, that she could have a meal here anytime. He said to her, 'someday if you could pay me back when you make it, then you pay me.' She was part of our family and we've lost a dear friend. She referred to me as her sister, even when she signed my copy of her book, she signed it, 'To My Sister Anna." 

Sal with Rosemary, one of the many, many times she visited the restaurant

Sal is coming to Atlantic City!

Just wanted to give you all a quick update about our July 4th plans. As you may already know, we'll be closed July 4th and 5th - this follows a long-standing tradition where we always take off on July 4th to spend time with the family. It's a great opportunity for us all to take a family vacation together, and my parents even got married during the July 4th break!

That said, if you were looking forward to getting some Patsy's during the holiday, you still can! In fact, Sal will be going up to Atlantic City, and will be cooking in Patsy's AC on July 3rd and 4th! If you'll be visiting AC, then you should definitely stop by the restaurant while Sal's there!

In fact, that's not the only thing going on in Patsy's AC. We've actually got several exciting events going on - as soon as the information on them is finalized, I'll post them here!

~ Paul

Patsy's, Vinvino, and Antinori - it runs in the family!

Here at Patsy's, we pride ourselves on being a family business - but we're not the only ones! In fact, it's not uncommon for us to work with other businesses that have also been run by the same family over many generations. Two such families are the Giachino family, which runs Vinvino Wine, and the Antinore family, which owns an orchard in Italy. Giachino's got 5 generations of family running it (meaning they've got one more than us), but Antinore has us both beat - they've been around for 625 years, and right now are on their Twenty-Sixth Generation. That's impressive.

Gus Giachino of Vinvino (middle), Renzo Cotarella of Antinore (right), and my father, Frank DiCola, of what else - Patsy's!

Being an Italian Restaurant, it's natural that we offer Italian wines. We've done business with Vinvino for many years, as they're a distributor that directly sells us the wines. Since the Antinore wines are one of their best offerings, we've bought a lot of them over the years. So, when Vinvino organized a wine tasting in NYC that was featuring a new line of Antinore wines, we knew we had to check it out! I went there with my dad, and not only was the wine great, but it was a pretty valuable learning experience.

The different wines they offered at the tasting.

Wine is interesting - it's one of those products that most people are aware of on some level, but very few are widely knowledgeable about. When my dad first started seriously working at Patsy's, however, he noticed that the wine list was pretty sparse, so he's done a great job of bolstering it over the years (we now offer over 300 wines, and my dad's made sure that all of them are great!)

Naturally, this meant that when we went to the wine tasting, he explained a lot of terminology to me. For example, several of the new wines being offered from Antinore were being called "Super Tuscans". I had no idea what this meant, and figured it was just a fancy name, but my dad filled me in, and it's actually pretty interesting. Apparently, there's official naming conventions when it comes to wine, and if you want to call your wine by a certain name, you have to use specific kinds of grapes. A Chianti wine, for example, is a blend of mostly red grapes, but if you want to call it Chianti you need white grapes as well. Some time ago, Antinore was preparing some new Chianti wines and wanted to try making them with only red grapes. As per the rules, they were allowed to do this... but they couldn't call the resulting wine Chianti. So the term 'Super Tuscan' was formed, and it's become a blanket term that describes any Italian wine that doesn't fall under standard naming conventions for wine.

Pretty cool, huh?

Gus briefly describes the next wine we're about to taste

The theme of the event was that either Gus or Renzo would get up and run us through what they'd tried to do with the wine we were about to taste. It'd be poured, and some food would be brought out that complemented it. This was by far my favorite part of the event - the wine alone was great, but combining it with the perfect kind of food was phenomenal. For example, we had a deep, rich red wine near the end of the meal, and to complement it they brought out a delicious piece of filet mignon. Truth be told, I wasn't even aware we'd be getting food at this event, so I was loving it.

A really tasty appetizer - breadsticks wrapped in prosciutto. I'm thinking we should try this at Patsy's! 

All in all, the best thing about the event was seeing all these great family businesses come together. Vinvino's got a fascinating history, because it's been around for over 100 years, meaning that the company endured prohibition and the ever-changing landscape of wine distribution in NYC. Getting to talk to the 26th generation CEO of Antinore felt like a priveledge - I can only hope that Patsy's gets that far! It's great to see how the younger generations admire those that came before them and paved the way for their own success.

The youngest members of Vinvino and Patsy's, respectively

~ Paul