With New Yorkers rooting for its underdog team, Middle Village restaurant Mario’s Meats and Gourmet Deli (7555 Metropolitan Avenue, at 78th Street) is selling its $15 OMG sandwich named for Jose Iglesias’s (Candelita’s) runaway hit song. It’s made with Mets’ blue but confusingly named “Grimace bread,” a nod to the purple pear-shaped McDonald’s character that has become an unlikely mascot of good luck for the New York baseball team this season. Grimace was linked to Mets’ wins since June, when he threw out the first pitch at a game and the team’s early season bad fortune turned around, New York Post reported.
Owner “Joey DiGangi made it up,” says an employee about the nod to Grimace. The bread is split and layered with roast beef, Swiss, coleslaw, and Russian dressing. The Mets are down in the series against the LA Dodgers. (We will eat purple-blue bread — whatever it takes for a Thursday-night win after Wednesday’s loss.)
Post-season, the employee says the sandwich will still be available “on regular Italian bread.”
Chrissy’s Pizza is opening in Greenpoint soon
Chrissy’s Pizza, the wildly popular New York-style limited-availability pizza, will finally have its own storefront soon. Launched in 2021 by Chris Hansell out of his Bushwick apartment, his pizza has segued from the old Superiority Burger location on East Ninth to late-night in the new Superiority Burger location, to its very own storefront at 142 Nassau Avenue, between Newel Street and McGuinness Boulevard, opening any day now. Word is Hansell will serve whole pies only upon opening, but unlike its SB residence, there will be meats.
Same space, same chef, different restaurant
Tao Group’s Crane Club will open November 20, with reservations now available via SevenRooms. The giant, 24,000 square-foot restaurant — that had been Del Posto for 16 years under Mario Batali and the Bastianich family, then the two-Michelin-starred Al Coro with chef Melissa Rodriguez and Jeff Katz — is now owned by one of the most profitable restaurant groups in America. Rodriguez, who took over for chef Mark Ladner at Del Posto, has been at the helm of all three iterations of the space at 85 10th Avenue, at 15th Street.
Bubby’s has an apple farm in Japan
It’s peak apple season, and pie destination Bubby’s apparently has an apple farm in Japan, in its the Aomori Prefecture in the Tōhoku region, Tribeca Citizen reports. While the restaurant has one location in New York (120 Hudson Street, at North Moore), the kid-friendly day-to-night spot has six shops in Japan.