Update: Oreo, Dog Thrown Off Building, Was Euthanized
People Wait For Tomorrow's UWS Apple Store Opening
Cheap Chicken Wing Deal Ruined by Gunslinging Teens
FIT Students Busted For Drug Dealing Get Probation
Views From Your Windows
You know what we're talking about. You're having a perfectly lovely meal in a perfectly lovely restaurant and then nature calls. You walk down the steep, poorly lit staircase, hoping for the best, turn the knob on the bathroom door and...
This is New York. It's a coin toss every time you open a restaurant's bathroom door. Will it be an über-designed unisex with stalls made of glass that magically frost up when you sit on the commode? Or, will it be a nasty pit with plumbing from the Nixon-era, seriously in need of disinfectant?
The latter scenario rears its ugly "head" more often then one might imagine - even in some of the city's most charming and atmospheric restaurants. Case in point, the adorable and venerable Belgian spot Cafe de Bruxelles. Upstairs an enchanting West Village hideaway, complete with lacy curtains and irresistable Moules et Frites. Downstairs - one of New York's nastiest restrooms await. Same goes for the recently refurbished Jackson Diner in Jackson Heights. The owners turned the vaulting dining room into a clean, crisp, modern environment - but the bathroom is anything but.
Heck, even one of the city's most lauded restauranteurs, Mario Batali, has fallen short with his super-cramped, worn-out restrooms at Otto. One recent female visitor audibly complained that the stalls were too small to accomodate a "Kung Fu" foot flush that was deemed necessary due to the room's lack of cleanliness.
Gothmist won't give up great food, service or atmosphere in the name of a "Royal Flush," but a class-act, clean commode should really be a must in any fine dining establishment. But, until that's the case across all five boroughs, we too will continue to make our way down the steep staircase, turn the knob on the bathroom door and hope for the best.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
Any trendy restaurant bathroom that aspires to be groundbreaking and stylish MUST have the three seashells. It's the new black.
//dumb joke
Vittles, you're so on the money with this. Especially when you're headed to the bathroom right after your order - ugh, what a terrible tone to set for the rest of the evening. You go to a dive, you except the bathroom to be gross, but at nice restaurants, when the sinks are dripping and the paper towels are overflowing and things are a mess, it becomes so much more disorienting.
Here's a link to a previous post on some hot NYC bathrooms.
I have the ultimate gross NYC bathroom story. Granted it was at Roxy and not a restaurant. I was forced to use the facilities and when I went in looked down and actually saw a used enema on the floor. Needless to say, I fled and my phobia of public restrooms is now officially justified.
MT,
Sorry about that. Won't happen again, I promise.
Just think the kitchen crew probably use the germ ridden, festering stink hole bathrooms too.
Yum.
What good does washing your hand do when you touch the filthy faucet knobs and door handles on the way out.
I personally use a papertowel buffer.
But I have seen kitchen crew in the bathroom with a less than stellar aproach to hygene. (don't eat in those places anymore)
Heck I was at Joe's pizza before it closed the corner location.
The guy making a pie sneezed in his hand and went right back to working the dough. I called him out on it and he denied sneezing in his hand.
I am like i just saw you, and a few customers chimed in thay noticed too.
Fucking filthy bastards.... They always seem to work in resturants.
I understand. Sometimes you get that not so fresh feeling at inopportune moments and you just have to deal with it. I'm sure it was an honest mistake.
i also do the same as haywood. the problem is that sometimes places don't have paper towels, but the hand dryers. those suck.
Glad to see Otto (a place I otherwise adore just like everyone else) getting called out for the skeezy bathrooms.
Just remembered -- Bonita in Williamsburg is another place I will not be returning to, after watching a scruffy hipster waiter relieve himself and then not wash up before leaving the loo.
I've been to those Roxy bathrooms and I feel your pain MT. If your going to dance all night, I guess its best to have that fresh clear feeling right?
Can't get must worse then Club bathrooms. No one can pee straight and its all over the walls and floor.
NOTE to Coke doers: Please completely flush your baggies when your finished please.
Maybe the Belgian place was trying to be authentic by having bad bathrooms?
KeithS, judging from just my informal observations, I would say half the men I see in public restrooms don't wash their hands. But a waiter? C'mon that's gross.
As Anthony Bourdain wrote in "Kitchen Confidential," if the restroom isn't clean, the kitchen probably isn't either, because restrooms are much, much easier to clean than kitchens.
men rarely wash their hands anyway. we're all screwed.
Anyone buy the arguement that as long as you aren't peeing on your hands washing is not needed? If not, then I wash my hands.
Urine is sterile (Unless you have the clap or it stayed in a puddle stagnant for a while). Pee on your hands to your heart's content.
Martini's has a nice women's room.
"Recently refurbished" Jackson Diner?
I've been living there over 3 years. Looks the same as the day I went in. (And I don't use the bathrooms.) Time to re-visit, Gothamist.