We Need to Talk About Carmine's

There is a place called Carmine’s right on 44th Street, in the middle of Times Square that has been there for thirty years, which is a pretty long time. And as a true Broadway outsider, I have a long and complicated relationship with this fuckin’ place.

Over the years, I have eaten there more times than I can count. My friend Jenny, (somewhat ironically,) has her birthday party there every year.

I have worked there… twice; once as a waiter so very long ago and again briefly, as a bartender when all the odds seemed stacked against me. Both tours of duty left me changed.

I wrote my first novel about this goddamn place.

For a long time, the first line of my first novel was, “There is a place called Luigi’s, which is an Italian restaurant in the theatre district on the west side of Manhattan.”

I like the Big Sleep vibe of writing from, “between the wars.” — “She was a blond that would make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window.”

I changed “Carmine’s” to “Luigi’s” in my book to avoid any legal entanglements borne of the prideful assumption that anyone would read it in the first place. 

Courtesy: Carmines NYC

The place is a piece of theatre in its own right, and I wonder if that point isn’t lost on most people. Old black and white pictures cover the walls like someone’s grandmother died and left them all hanging around. Upon entering, you are barraged by Sinatra and the sight of shockingly large plates of pasta. It’s one of the most perfectly executed illusions in all of Broadway, and you are also part of the show. I don’t know how the old Jewish guy who opened the place in 1990 did it – but he captured lightening in a bottle.

In case you aren’t sure what I’m talking about – Carmine’s is a family style Italian restaurant which means it serves huge dishes meant to be shared by the whole table, and this simple concept was enough to make it an instant legend. There have been lines of tourists outside ever since, on their way to the theatre or – heaven help us – the Rockettes at Christmas; but Christmas season at Carmine’s is something none of us discuss– like war vets who saw too much of the wrong kind of shit back in the bush.

Courtesy: Carmines NYC

Just a few doors down from the long-entrenched Sardi’s, Carmine’s is not a Broadway hang out by any means and has acquired a notorious reputation as being For Tourists Only, which is kind of unfortunate and I blame the tourists. Naturally. But I’m gonna say it here and now in print forever – the food is still damn good. A garlicky you-know-you-want-it guilty pleasure that will make you curse nature for giving not giving you a larger stomach in which to put it.Way back in the late 90s’, (I didn’t even live here yet,) some friends and I were heading into The City to see a show and we were told by someone in near hysterics, “You have to go to Carmine’s – you have to!” We stood packed in at the bar which looks to be about a half a block long, barely able to move. I remember feeling like this must be the center of the center of the world. We finally got our drinks. Don’t ask me why, but I got a Manhattan. It came in a huge martini glass with “Carmine’s” written on it.  I stole the glass, which can only mean I wasn’t old enough to be drinking in the first place, and it sat on a shelf in my kitchen for years. Dubious foreshadowing looking back at it now…

Years later, I would sit at the end of the bar nearest the window when there was still just a wall there, before they bought the pizza place next door to expand. I would visit my friend Sondra who was also a client when I was in talent representation. No reasonable person would argue that bringing my client her sides for her audition at the bar was anything but going that extra mile. She was the first female bartender at Carmine’s. Way to smash that glass ceiling. Shortly after, they rented the entire second floor, doubling the size of the place, and that is right around when I went slinking in asking Sondra if they would hire me. Being branded a “creative” at the office, I decided it was time to get out of talent representation and go be a talent. 

If You Know, You Know
Courtesy: Scott Brooks / Tawk of New Yawk

Later, the Daily News was doing an article, the Super Bowl was coming up, and they were promoting Carmine’s Scarpiello wings and they asked some of us to pose for a picture. The News ran the shot. They put the framed page on the wall with all the other pictures, and to this day I am somewhere on the wall in Carmine’s — in the newspaper — eating a chicken wing. 

I was destined for mediocrity.

The other day, as things happen, I was craving Carmine’s eggplant parm, and I ordered one to go. I sat there looking around this strange place that has hardly changed in thirty years. It occurred to me that Carmine’s knows more about me than I know about it. I see this older waitress, let’s call her Lucy. Lucy was the oldest woman working there when I first did, and she is still there, her hair now completely white. Skinny and small, she pushes her way around her assigned section with determined patience — another product of the shoddy socio-economic policies of the richest country on earth.

There are others who’ve never left too, their eyes lock on me as I try to hide in a gin and tonic. Most of them had already been there since forever when I first started, and they are still somehow there, the elder statesmen of clam sauce. One guy who’s name I don’t remember comes over to me, Hey Scottie what’s up? Time stands still at Carmine’s, but I guess that was always the point. 

In the blue-collar economy, there are a lot worse places to grow old. I’ve been lucky enough to travel many roads on my journey as a “creative,” but in another way, I still am at Carmine’s, and I always will be. Like Jack Nicholson in The Shining when they zoom in on that old black and white picture of him from years ago, and you think, No way. No way he was there all that time ago.

Courtesy: The Take