January 5, 2008
Mice Timing at Mermaid Inn
The mice at The Mermaid Inn’s East Village location picked a mischievous moment to scurry out into the dining room a few nights ago – as luck would have it a writer for Time Out New York was there waiting for a table! The immodest mice must have been looking for their 15 minutes of fame, because they timed their appearance perfectly with TONY staffer Jordana Rothman’s emergence from the bathroom.
As she made her way to the front of the house where her friends were waiting, Rothman witnessed the “plague-carrying rodents as they merrily skipped into the dining room, pausing on someone’s shoe.” We spoke with the general manager by phone, who confirmed the sightings, saying that it “shakes your world” and that two extermination companies had since inspected the restaurant and found no problem “except for being located in New York City.”
Nevertheless, The Mermaid Inn (East Village) will be closed this weekend for renovations and some “structural changes to seal up an area” the mice may have used as a portal; the restaurant will open again on Tuesday. While hardly a rat rodeo, there’s always something a little unappetizing about vermin, isn’t there? Back before the turn of the century, a mouse once crawled over our shoe while we ate at the now-closed Comfort Diner on 86th Street. What rodent run-ins have you weathered at a New York restaurant?
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On our last family visit to NYC in April we were vastly entertained by a rodent incident at Katz's deli. My son spotted a very young rat in the aisle and we watched it move under a table. We decided to keep our mouths shut and see what would happen. Someone else saw the thing a few minutes later and general hysteria ensued. People were jumping up from their seats in a style reminiscent of a Whack-a-Mole arcade game as the little guy scurried around the dining room. A bus boy missed it a few times with his broom, but one of the waiters finally stomped the poor bugger. Then the host announced that it must have come in from the street through the front door and said it happens now and then. Ha.
in the basement of the restaurant i was working at, i reached up to grab a stack of napkins from a higher shelf. something small, brown and furry cmae down and hit my on the shoulder. it so gross, i'm glad the mouse landed in a bucket so that i could have someone else kill it.
perry street restaurant has some mice regulars that flutter around the dining room.
I used to work at Mermaid Inn when Mike Price was the chef and it was really really clean. I've worked in PLENTY of restaurants in New York (one of which was owned by an Iron Chef) that were littered with rats. Its New York, right? No matter how much money and power you have, sometimes its just not enough to keep them out...
While having a business lunch one afternoon at the old Cucina Della Fontana on Bleecker, I had the distinct pleasure of seeing their house cat saunter through the dining room with the bottom half of a rodent sticking out of its mouth. Guess he was having his lunch too....