Speaking Red Hook – Carlo and Ben’s new adventures

Ben Schneider (owner, with his wife Sohui, of Good Fork) was the lead last year in Carlo Vogel’s production of Up For Anything (UFA) by Marc Spitz. They sat down at Barry O’Meara’s (who also appeared in UFA) Bait and Tackle Bar to discuss Schneider’s new restaurant and Vogel’s new production – both slated to open this fall.

Ben Schneider: Hi Carlo.

Carlo Vogel: Hi Ben!

BS: So, you’re producing another play?

CV: Yes. Another one by Marc Spitz. It’s called P.S. It’s Poison. I’m producing but also acting in this one this time. Arthur [Aulisi – the “English” architect in UFA] is directing. But you know all this because you were supposed to be in it. You even read it with us! Out loud. You were funny! Tease.

BS: I really wanted to do it, but I’m opening a new restaurant.

CV: I know. Everyone loved you in UFA and the role in the new one was really right for you. But you have to open your stupid restaurant.

BS: And you couldn’t move your stupid play to accommodate me.

CV: The theatre waits for no one.

BS: Fine dining feeds the soul.

CV: Ok. You got me there. I suppose we can lose you for one show so that we can have a new soul feeder. We got a great guy who lives in Park Slope to play the role. And now that we have the rapt attention of our audience – the new restaurant will be….

BS: Korean barbeque. It will be called Insa.

CV: Mmm yum. I like KBBQ. Are you going to have all those tiny dishes of stuff that they bring out before the meal?

BS: Yes.

CV: What is all that stuff?

BS: Kimchi and…uh…I have to ask my wife.

CV: Yea, it’s a lot of crazy different stuff. I like it all though.

BS: And then there will be a Tiki-ish bar…

CV: Wait! What? A Tiki bar?

BS: And Karaoke rooms…

CV: Hold the phone. Karaoke is fine, but what’s up with the Tiki bar?! Like bamboo? You’re going to have drinks in skull mugs with smoke coming out of them? Scorpion bowls with paper umbrellas stuck into pineapple? Pupu platters? The whole deal?

BS: No. No. I said “Tiki-ish.” We won’t have smoking skull mugs and I think the pupu platter got nixed.

CV: Well if it isn’t a Tiki bar, then what is it?

BS: Kind of like the cocktail lounge at an old Chinese restaurant.

CV: That sounds like a Tiki bar to me.

BS: Less bamboo. More red banquettes. The concept is still being refined. But we will have the classic rum drinks and serve Korean street food.

CV: I may never make it into the restaurant. I certainly won’t do Karaoke. I’m a terrible singer. But I hear the kids like it.

BS: The kids do like it, and so do many adults… especially after a few rum drinks.

CV: True that. You grew up in Manhattan. Did you ever go to the Trader Vic’s when it was in the basement of the Plaza Hotel? Before it closed? Now that was a Tiki bar!

BS: No, I never went there unfortunately. I’ve seen pictures. We’re certainly using it for some inspiration.

CV: I was lucky and made it there a few years before it closed [in 1993]. I got very drunk and shoved a skull mug down my pants so I could steal it.

BS: You didn’t?

CV: I did and as we were leaving the waiter was sort of nodding at my crotch trying to get me to cough it up. But what could he say? “Please take the skull mug out of your pants sir.”

BS: He could have called the cops.

CV: I suppose. But he didn’t, and I still have the mug.

BS: I’m certainly not letting you into my bar now.

CV: Hey if you put that much rum in your drinks, as a restaurant owner you have to deal with the consequences. But enough about me; let’s talk about my new play. What did you think when you read it?

BS: I thought was very funny. Very, very dark. It definitely is not a slap-happy farce like the last one.

CV: I’d like to hear your summary of the action.

BS: Let’s see. Two old college couples get together after not seeing each other for a long while. They are all, or were, writers. Or something. Very liberal arts college types. Full of themselves. And it gets very messy.

CV: Yeah, that’s Act I.

BS: And then in Act II their old college professor shows up —

CV: Played by Geoff [Wiley – owner of Jalopy, with his wife Lynette].

BS: — with his new young girlfriend. They open this mysterious package that the professor has had shipped from some far off land and —

CV: That’s enough! Don’t want to give away too much.

BS: Ok. But it goes down a rabbit hole, and not at all where I expected it to go.

CV: Yup.

BS: I think the Red Hook types will like it.

CV: As do I. Speaking of Red Hook – Insa is not going to be in Red Hook.

BS: No. We needed a big space and access to more suckers — I mean patrons. So it is in Gowanus – 328 Douglass Street.

CV: That area is blowing up.

BS: Yeah. It’s cool though. Lots going on for sure.

CV: Michael [Stokes] tells me that you have a couple of special dishes planned – the street food stuff.

BS: Michael is our Chef d’Cuisine and Sohui is Executive Chef.

CV: You know Michael did the food at my wedding?

BS: Yes I did.

CV: He’s a great chef. He is also partially responsible for the name of the theater group – he came up with the “Glass Bottom” part of the Red Hook Glass Bottom Dramatical Players name.

BS: Wow. A chef and a wordsmith?

CV: And a blacksmith. So to speak. Or a construction guy. He’s helping build your restaurant. I mean literally build it.

BS: That’s true, and I thank him. So Michael and Sohui put together a lot of great stuff, but the ones so far that have been hits are the Hotbar and the Sundae.

CV: Huh? What is that? Sessert? Are you a Swenson’s too?

BS: Swenson’s?

CV: Forget it. West Coast thing.

BS: No. Hotbar is kind of like a corn dog, but fish. Fish on a stick.

CV: Ok. I’d eat that.

BS: And Sundae is blood sausage. Sliced up.
Finger food.

CV: That sounds like a tough sell. Good that you are calling it Sundae.

BS: It is really good.CV: I’m sure. I love that kind of thing. And then the regular BBQ menu?

BS: You order a bunch of raw meat – beef, chicken, fish, whatever – and you get bowls of vegetables. Then there are these gas grills in the middle of each table —

CV: Sounds like an insurance adjusters nightmare.

BS: It’s fine. Anyway, you get sauces, and you cook the stuff up at your table.

CV: So we pay you for the privilege of cooking our own food?

BS: Well, no. Sort of. The waiter assists you. Basically does it for you. Unless you know what you are doing. It would be a shame to mess up all those great ingredients.

CV: Alright, that’s fair. How did you come up with the name “Insa;” what does it mean?

BS: We needed something that was Korean, but easy for Americans to pronounce. It translates to “greeting.” It’s just a noun.

CV: Weird. But OK.

BS: How do you come up with the names of your plays?

CV: I don’t. Marc [Spitz] does. He used to rip them off from rock and roll lyrics, but now he actually invents them.

BS: How long have you been working with Marc on his plays?

CV: Marc and I went to college together – liberal artsy college type stuff – in the early 90s. He and I are sort of stuck in that decade and so are the characters he writes. We’ve done about half dozen plays. We are bringing back the good ones to do at Jalopy. We originally did P.S. It’s Poison a few years ago. It was disaster. The director quit, I got Lymes disease, Hurricane Andrew screwed our schedule, among other bad things.

BS: When does the new and improved version open?

CV: We open on November 6th, Friday, at the Jalopy Theatre. This time we’ll run over ten days – ten shows in eight days. (What Carlo means: Ten days with two days off. Two 2 show days – a matinee and an evening. Ten performances total.

BS: Oh, that’s better. Last time we did just the four shows, which sold out. Lots of people couldn’t get in. So we had to do it again.

CV: Yes. I hope this time we can get everyone in. Please, please tell everyone to come to an early show! Everyone always waits till the last show. It happens every time. And I can’t accommodate them.

BS: I will tell all ten people I will see in the next few months while I am trying to get my restaurant open.

CV: So Insa opens in a “few months?”

BS: Yes. I wish I could say for sure, but while the place will be done soon, I just have no control over the New York City bureaucracy that is required to open.

CV: It’s like doing theatre.

BS: No it’s not.

CV: It is. You throw all these unpredictable things at the “production” – whether it be a show or a restaurant – with a very clear goal. But you never know what is going to trip you up along the way. You never know if anyone is going to show up. You never know if you will make any money – or in the case of theatre, make enough money to break even.

BS: Except I’m not “running” for ten shows. The restaurant has got to “run” for years.

CV: I was just trying to turn the conversation back to my play so I could get more column inches.

BS: You succeeded.

CV: Did I? Oh. Look at that. Do you have a website?

BS: We have splash page and a Twitter feed. And a Facebook page.
www.insabrooklyn.com
twitter.com/insabrooklyn
www.facebook.com/insabrooklyn

CV: Oh man. I hate all that stuff.

BS: Your character says something like that in the new play.

CV: Marc wrote the character for me to play because I hadn’t been in a show in over ten years.

BS: That would explain that then.

CV: Yea. I’m not really acting in it. I’m just being me. But more annoying.

BS: That’s scary. How do people get tickets?

CV: I still have to learn the right lines and say them correctly! Don’t bump into the furniture! That’s acting. We’ll have tickets for sale at Bait and Tackle and Jalopy. Also there will be a link at www.jalopy.biz that will direct to an online sales portal. But it will be cheaper to buy them at the two locations – the online thing charges a fee. We’re also going to have a meal at Jalopy Tavern and ticket deals for the off nights. Look for that at their website.

BS: Jalopy Tavern has very good food.

CV: They do. Should we talk about the future? After you get your new hit restaurant off the ground?

BS: Sure. In the spring you are going to produce a play that I’ve been wanting to do for a while.

CV: Yup. Which shall remain detail-less for the moment because the author [another Red Hook local restaurateur] has yet to deliver a script to me. I feel he might be a bit shy about this.

BS: He is. But you are going to produce and it will be a huge local cast. An outdoor extravaganza. About boxing.

CV: And then you will make your triumphant return to the Red Hook Glass Bottom Dramatical Players in the role of Francis Ford Coppola. A new one from Spitz. Never been performed. A fantasy retelling of the making of Apocalypse Now.

BS: It needed some work.

CV: We are working on it.

BS: What’s it called again?

CV: Not sure yet. Either Breathe Dead Hippo or Up The Nung.

BS: Right. Good luck.

CV: And good luck to you! I can’t wait to drink some rum cocktails and cook up some raw meat!