THE WEEKLY ROUND-UP: LAB-GROWN BURGERS, FRESH FRIES, AND FRANK BRUNI

• Double-Barrelled Travel, Top 5 local bites with Foods of New York Tours: “Foods of New York Tour through Greenwich Village is one of the best things we’ve done in the USA so far.” Big props to Raheem for his amazing tour!
• Adventures of a Middle-Aged Drama Queen, Foods of Ny Tours: “It had been an AMAZING three-hour tour of Greenwich Village…with some history, culture, trivia, food–and SURPRISES–thrown in.” Three cheers for Susan for her excellent tour guide skills!

• Competition bubbles up for craft brewers in NY: By this time next year, the city could be home to as many as 20 craft breweries, up from the current 14 today. While craft-beer sales have been rising locally and nationally, some fear a beer bubble from the new arrivals. Others wonder how the smaller breweries might survive in one of the nation’s most expensive real estate markets.
• Tavern on the Green gains financial backer: A Boston-based private-equity investor has emerged as the financial backer of the Central Park restaurant Tavern on the Green. Jack Le Roy of Summit Partners, who is no relation to the LeRoy family that had run Tavern on the Green for decades before its 2010 closure, plans to reopen the restaurant by the end of the year with Emerald Green, the Philadelphia firm that won the operating license from the city last year.
• Now Legal: 10 a.m. Brunch in NYC: For the first time in more than four decades this weekend, NYC restaurants legally opened sidewalk seating before noon for Sunday brunch. A city law dating from 1971 had forbidden sidewalk seating before midday, but some Brooklyn restaurants had recently fought the oft-ignored rule, prompting the City Council to move the Sunday opening time to 10 a.m.
• Woolworth Building Gives Peeks at Its Historic Lobby: For years, enjoyment of the detailed mosaic ceilings and intricately sculpted figures of the Woolworth Building’s lobby has been restricted to its office workers and their guests. But now, 100 years after it opened, the public can view the lobby once again in small tour groups organized by the great-granddaughter of the building’s architect, Cass Gilbert.
• Bloomberg gets serious about Seaport City: Just months before leaving office, the mayor has issued a request for proposals for a new effort to both shield lower Manhattan from storm waters and to create new economic opportunities.

It’s going well! I’m focusing on the Food of NY Tours blog task this sprint, so I haven’t been able to start the initial build tasks for Island Head yet. Some blog posts have many images and URLs that I need to manually add and check, so it’s taking some time to complete tjose. Right now, I have about 50 posts left and should finish by tomorrow.For the Belle of Louisville, I’ve already started the task as well. Aubrey, I just saw your replies to my comments in the feedback doc. Regarding the circus banner background that the client wants applied to all pages, it may take me some time to complete because I need to individually Photoshop each header to ensure the H1 text fits within the circus banner background.

 

• Shake Shack Serves Fresh-Cut Fries for the First Time Ever: After nine years in business, Shake Shack is finally making the switch from frozen crinkle-cut French fries to fresh-cut French fries.
• TripAdvisor ranks New York pizza as fourth best?!? Fuggedaboutit: The Big Apple’s best pie makers – like Di Fara’s, Totonno’s and John’s of Bleecker Street – apparently didn’t stack up to the pizzas prepped in culinary destinations like San Diego, Las Vegas, and Boston, which represent the top three.
• A Lab-Grown Burger Gets a Taste Test: A hamburger made from cow muscle grown in a laboratory was fried, served and eaten in London on Monday in an odd demonstration of one view of the future of food.

• Frank Bruni Tweets Rafele: @FrankBruni, Aug 3rd “Terrific dinner last nite at under-the-radar Rafele in NYC’s West Vill. Eggplant parmigiana, margherita pizza and ravioli in particular.”
• A Peak Inside 9.5 Million Greenwich Townhouse: Joshua Gurwitz purchased this property at 23 Downing Street, pictured at center, in Greenwich Village in 2011 for $3.35 million.
• Marc Jacobs to Open a Dedicated Store for His New Beauty Line: Marc Jacobs is no stranger to switching around his Bleecker Street stores, but The Shophound recently noticed a pretty big move: the women’s collection accessories store will soon become an outpost for the designer’s inaugural beauty collection.

• Alan Richman: ZZ’s, the Most Expensive 58 Minutes in New York Dining

: ZZ’s is incredible. It’s a supremely stylish, delicious raw bar. But if it’s going to cost $316 per hour—two can get a grand meal at a 4-star restaurant in New York for not much more—it has to upgrade the experience.

• Chelsea Market Openings: Chelsea Market, which débuted sixteen years ago, can feel like an open secret: the former Nabisco factory’s unassuming façade hides a cavernous, cobblestoned food court dense with tantalizing eateries and still growing.

• The Smile: Adrian Grenier’s “Perfect For” Picks for Birthdays: “Low key with an intimate atmosphere. This is a great spot to share good food with good friends.”

• Fried Dumpling Named Among Top 5 Fastest Dollar Dumpling Spots in Manhattan’s Chinatown: I visited five restaurants last December, armed with a dollar in one hand and a timer in the other, to see who could deliver the tastiest fastest dumpling in a New York minute–and who puts the dump in dumpling.