Savory Bites

Preamble:

Savory Bites is a new player in Hudson's lunch counter arena and occupies the former Cascades space at 407 Warren Street. They open at 7am and close at 11pm. They are one of the few places open late. Savory Bites Deli and Grill offers customers a reasonable lunch with a deli and salad bar. Most of the menu items are in the $10 price range.

The Atmosphere:

They renovated the entire space from what was Cascades. The old tiled floors are covered with a green marblesque flooring. There are rows of shelves filled with groceries and large refrigerators for drinks. There is no place to sit.

The overhead fluorescent lighting is a little austere.

People blame the LGBTQ+ community for a lot of things, but, the overhead fluorescent lighting at Savory Bites, that's not us folks. Sorry. Maybe the hexagon fluorescent lighting structures are a stylistic homage to the former hexagon-tiled floor?

If they had asked me...

Mother wanted me to come out in a kimono, so we had quite a fight.
-Little Edie

If they had asked me, which they did not, but if they had asked me to design the new Savory Bites, this is what I would have done.

It would be a theme deli - a Grey Gardens theme. I would like to bring back Hudson circa 2006, when she was a wistful old lady of a town, who sat in the widow's perch of her Victorian mansion waiting for her husband, the captain, to return from a whaling voyage on a ship filled with handsome young sailors.

My Grey Gardens deli would be crawling with fifty-two cats and a rabid raccoon. There would be vociferous complaints from neighbors and virtually no plumbing.

There would be several table top lamps across the space draped in Stevie Nicks-like veils. The deli would glow like a bordello (an homage to Hudson's past). Soft rose-colored light bulbs would soften any imperfection in your skin.

In one corner, there would be a large Alexanders-like bin filled with mismatched shoes and a sign, Strapless Mules in Assertive Hues. In another corner would be a random old woman on a twin bed chirping the song, "The Girl Who Had Everything". None of the groceries on the shelves would make sense - there would be one container of Ovaltine, a box of Borax, a jar of olives, Duncan Hines Super Moist cake mix, a bag of onions, and two packages of lemon Jell-O. On the back wall there would be a picture of Marge Simpsons' sisters, Patty and Selma Bouvier. For the few who understood the reference and found the easter egg, it was worth the pilgrimage from Brooklyn. There would be an article on Hudson's Grey Gardens-themed deli in the New York Times.

I could easily lean into the role of deli-counter Little Edie. I would serve nothing but tinned fish and pâté while giving fashion advice, "Yes, you can also wear it as a cape."