can someone explain what's going on at schnack?
strangely, ive been going to schnack a bit over the last few months either in a friend's car as we leave red hook or on bike or whatever. ive always actually dug the food there (for what it was).
a few years back when they switched to some whole wheat bun on their schnackies, i didnt complain but i thought it was weird. since then, and particularly recently, the service staff is almost always differently, the place is usually empty even on saturdays and sundays, and then yesterday, they have a sign announcing BYOB (but they still serve beer shakes). are they just encouraging people to bring their own beer or did they lose their license or decide not to renew it (possibly closing)?
also, they served us our food on paper plates. we didnt complain but its a bit chinsey...even with $1.50 schnackies. soda was ridiculously flat.
the food is still alright but the service and changes just give me the impression that quality is severely lacking these days over there. and considering the attention harry hawk has gotten for the water taxi joint, im surprised they arent building up the home fort.
anyone have insight into this?
sam1
Jul 16, 2007 06:07AM
I think it's unfortunately the "When the cats away..." phenomenon - Harry - the proprietor of this joint - was always too happy to hook you up with a PBR while you waited for a table, back when it was always packed. However, he's since opened up shop at the Brooklyn Lyceum, Water Taxi Beach, and also over at the Barge Pool.
When they switched to the wheat buns and jacked up prices (singles used to be 99 cents) I felt the food went downhill fast. (This was about the same time as the opening of the Water Taxi Beach.)
I don't know about the BYO option, but if they have beer shakes, still, they need to have a beer and wine license.
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We were there a few weeks ago and asked about the BYO thing. The server said that they had decided it wasn't worth it to renew their license. (Which, we noticed, was inconsistent with the availability of beer milkshakes, but whatever.)
They were doing a vanilla & ginger ale milkshake which was great, BTW.
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They told me that there "wasn't enough beer in a beer shake to make it alcoholic", which sounds pretty weird and iffy to me, but whatever. It's too bad about Schnack. He really had something there but it's got too many tumbleweeds rolling around the place to really enjoy these days. Though the schnackies do still rock pretty hard...
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I don't know this place from a hole in the wall, but if you look at the website of the NYS Liquor Authority, it appears that the license would be $960 and the filing another $100 for a 3-year license. That's about $1 a day. Something must be up if they are not keeping up a license they already had...
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I was there about two weeks ago and they sent us to the deli next door for beer but still had the beer shakes posted on the board outside. When we tried to pay out bill they couldn't break a 100 and the ATM was broken so they once again sent us to the deli this time for change. The service had been really bad the last few times I've been there but I love those damn schnackies so I keep going back but I don't know for how much longer.
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Their service has always been atrocious, but friendly. My husband and I used to take bets on which part of our extremely uncomplicated order they would get wrong. We'd point out the error and they'd good naturedly take it back and fix the order. This was fine as long as the burgers remained kickass, but these days they're really hit or miss. I've gotten enough really dried out awful schnackies that we decided it wasn't worth the risk anymore. Stopped going about a year ago.
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Schnack seems to be in a kind of death spiral. Once upon a time I thought they had the best burgers in New York. It pained me when they raised prices a couple of years ago--once a place you could absolutely gorge for under $15, it was suddenly in the price range of much better "real" restaurants and stopped being so quirkily unique. Stopped by a few weeks ago and no beer? It really did pain me, this was once such a wonderful place and now it is empty and in shambles. Burgers not even as good as they once were, fries lukewarm. I will go check out the burgers at Water Taxi, but mourn the demise of Schnack.
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I don't know what you mean: what's going on at Schnack? It isn't good. It never was good. It's just a step-up from McDonald's...and less reliable.
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There are opinions and then there is foolishness. And that there is one big wad of foolishness. While Schnack is inconsistent and has gone downhill of late, to compare it unfavorably to McDonald's is just ridiculous. Please! I hope you and Ronald will be very happy together.
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I won't be going to either one. The point I was making is that Ronald will still be around for another year.
Salud, HankyT. I can see you've been around. I agree with you on your Peter Luger comments. Not so much the Al Di La business. Salud.
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