#68 "Make Your Wish" In Color! August 9, 2013

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I am not a writer.
When I started writing these blog posts almost 5 years ago, it was really just to showcase the drawings. I was only posting the drawings on Bookface before posting them here, and in Bookface there was no description of the drawings, how they were conceived, or any information at all except the number of the drawing. We didn't even name them on there, it would just show up one day as "Tim & Jeremy's Mind on Loup #68!!!" Usually with three exclamation points. When number one hundred was posted, I used all caps. No one cared.
As the blog posts seemed to get longer and longer I also started thinking about them differently. Originally, I would make a couple comments about the drawings themselves, but then I started thinking about the restaurant more. Since these drawings are all done in the restaurant, during the operating hours of service, I thought that it would be more fun for my 8 regular readers to get a glimpse of life within the restaurant.
The Loup is, after all, a strange and magical place. It has been at 105 W. 13th St. since 1989, and was conceived a decade earlier in a different location also on 13th St. Since that time, it has become a neighborhood staple. Regulars know they can come in any time for comfort food and strong, delicious martinis. It is a safe haven for artists and celebrities, who know they can show up and dine unmolested by tourists or people looking for autographs. And then there is the literary aspect. When the restaurant was first opened in 1977 by Bruce and Roxanne Bethany, they decided to court the literary community. They decided that if the place was full of writers, the rest of the world would follow. They were right. Writers of all types have haunted, and still haunt the walls of the Cafe Loup. From Salman Rushdie and Christopher Hitchens' wild late nights, to young unknown poets struggling to buy a pint, the restaurant has been a comfort zone and meeting spot to an entire generation (or two) of New York literati.
Of course I had no idea about any of that when I walked through the doors in 2002 and handed someone my resume. For me, it was off a convenient subway line, it was in a cool neighborhood, and it was a on a block with a bunch of other restaurants so it was easy for me to walk up and down the block dropping off resumes. At the time, I had been unemployed for months and so I would go out every day looking for jobs wherever I could. I was cold-calling places, like the Loup; I was going on mass cattle calls that I found in the back section of the Village Voice, and any other method I could think of to get a job; any job. So when I got the call from the Loup, I was just happy to get a call back. I didn't care if it was a Village Institution. I didn't care if it was a Writer's Bar. I was just happy to get a full schedule and the ability to pay my rent. It wasn't until much later that I realized the respect and admiration the people of New York felt for this little restaurant. I was always a little jealous of the regulars because they had this incredible place to go night after night and interact with all these interesting people. Later on I realized that I was not only part of that, I was helping to continue the tradition of making it people's favorite spot. Cafe Loup was my regular bar, and I got paid to be at it. It was a wonderful revelation, and even though I do have some favorite regular places outside of the Loup (aka work), I still consider it my regular place.
I went off on that tangent to let you know about the restaurant a little, although I am sure I have written all of that in some form or another throughout this blog sometime in the past. The original point of this blog post was going to be me going on a self deprecating rant about how I am not a writer, or how I don't describe myself as a writer. I write this blog out of a weird compulsion to continue writing about these drawings in relation to the restaurant that they were created in. It really is compulsory in that I have no motive, I have no goal in mind for the drawings or for the text that accompanies them. Tim and I have talked about making them into a book someday, and maybe some of this text could be included somewhere in there, but that is not the motivating force for me to continue writing. The truth is, I don't know why I keep writing these things. I think it might be a way of processing the work experience and trying to convey it in a clear and concise manner that helps me understand my past 13 years at this establishment. Not that it is important or even very interesting. Maybe I am trying to defend to myself my employment at a place for such a long period of time, even though working at the Loup has given me the freedom that I moved to New York for in the first place. I needed a place that was steady where I could work while pursuing my other interests, which have been incredibly varied in the decade and a half that I have called New York my home.
So, when you read these posts, I hope you enjoy them, but also know that I am almost writing them as a diary that I might look at some day to help me  remember this time and place in my own history. I always say that in an ever-changing world, at least the Cafe Loup stays the same. I sincerely hope that it stays the same forever, but I know that it won't. Some day it will be a Duane-Reade with a Starbucks kiosk in it, and the Cafe Loup name will be in every mall in America as a "New York style French Bistro." Then, you and I will be able to come back and read all of these blog posts and remember a time that was, of people that were, and a special place in the middle of it all. And we can all laugh at all of my typos, run-on sentences, and basic inability to write in the English language. Until then, I'll see you at the Loup!

#65 "Happy Campers" June 27, 2013

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The Weeds

The phone won't stop ringing. It's on the fourth ring when I get up from Table 33 and sprint across the dining room to grab the phone from behind the bar. As soon as I pick it up, I hear the dial tone and see Ardes has come from in the coat room and has already picked up the phone, taking another reservation. At this point, I have been interrupted too many times to rejoin Staff Meal, and decide I should get dressed and ready to be on the floor. After all, Tim has a nearly full bar, two Marbletops, and it's not even 5:30. I change and as I am coming out of the coat room tying my apron, a four top walks in "just for drinks." I put them on Table 15 and go to the waiter's station to get them water and to make myself a cup of coffee. Usually, I have some time in between Staff Meal and Service in which I can relax a little and have a cup of coffee while preparing for the evening. I can tell that this is not one of those nights. Tonight I am already in The Weeds.

I get Table 15 started with some water and two Beefeater manhattans straight up, one with olives the other with a twist and olives on the side, a pint of Anchor Steam and a glass of Sauvignon Blanc. I take over Table 5 and Table 6 from Tim. Table 6 is Barbara and a friend of hers, so that's good. She's a regular and always has the same thing, but even she pulls me aside and asks for an order of frites. I put that order in, and on my way out of the kitchen I see I have two more tables. I put some sugar in my coffee and set up 4 waters for Table 10 and 12 and as I am doing that, Karen sits down on 11. So, I pour her water and her wine and put all of the waters and wine on the tray and pass them out. Table 10 tells me they are going to the theater and in a hurry and are ready to order, so I stand there with the rest of the waters and Karens wine still on the tray and listen to them order a beet salad with the sauce on the side followed by the chicken but with frites instead of potatoes and just a soup for the lady. Oh, and also two Manhattans, one dry, one regular, both up and made with Canadian Club. I make a mental note and hand Karen her water and wine, dropping the remaining waters on Table 12. I write out the order for 10 since we don't have a computer POS system and put it in the kitchen, because when you're in The Weeds, the last thing you want to do is forget to order food. I go straight to the bar and get 15's drinks and grab menus for 11 and 12 (even though I don't think Karen really needs one) and drop the drinks on 15. At this point they tell me that they think that maybe they'll order some "small bites" so I drop the menus for them and rush back to the menu stand to get another 4 menus. At this point, Table One is being sat with another 4 Top and Liz and her friend have snuck into Table 2B. So, now I pick up another 4 menus to make 8 for 4 different tables and drop them on 12, 11, (one extra on 15) and 1. While I was doing that, I got the drink order from 12, a bottle of Cotes Du Rhone, and then go get Liz's Extra Sour Gray Goose Gimlet and her friends Pinot Grigio order and tell Table 1 that I will be right back to get their drink orders. I forgot about Barbara's frites so I race back into the kitchen and pick them up, wondering where the heck everyone else is, and being a little sad that our runner doesn't show up for another hour, and Table 10's soup and beets salad is also ready, so I pick up all three things and distribute them to Barbara first, and then soup and beets to Table 10. I stop to say "hi" to Karen and explain that I am already in The Weeds, so that I might be a little slow when the guy on position one at Table 15 actually grabs the back of my apron and tugs on it. I turn around to him as he says, "I think we're ready to order." My blood boils a bit when the girls at the table say something along the lines of, "Oh, we are? I haven't even looked yet!" and the tugger says something like, "I'll just order some small bites for the table." At which point he essentially lists off all of the items on the appetizer menu and takes a vote at the table until they have ordered 2 appetizers and an order of frites. During this time, Table 3, 4 and 16 have all been sat, and so I have a full section and it's barely 6:00.

Flash forward to a half an hour later. The runner has finally showed up, although my section is full and then rest of the restaurant is filling up fast. It's just one of those nights where The Weeds poke through the pavement at an extraordinary rate and there is nothing you can do to stop them. I knew it was going to happen as soon as I walked into the restaurant a little after 4:30. The book was packed and the phone just wouldn't quit. That's how you know. You can feel it from the frantic energy in an empty restaurant. Now here I am, two hours later without time to even drink my coffee which sits untouched on the waiter's station, cold and stale. I see it and down it in one gulp, picking up drinks at the same time and racing over to Table 6 to get Barbara her bill. At this point I pick up Barbara's Gold Card and run it through our credit card machine. American Express has extra security so I take the extra time that it takes to process the order to process my section. I start from the front:

Table 1: Ordered food, waiting for apps, have drinks

Table 2A: Still looking at wine list although most definitely ready to order

Table 2B: Liz and friend on Round 2 of drinks. Probably ready for more. And frites

Table 3: Having drinks and looking at menus

Table 4: Drinking (light weights) very slowly

Table 5: Still here from about 5 and essentially taking up space. "Camping"

Table 6: Waiting for me to give her this credit card which is processing extra slow

Table 10: Eating entrees, going to be early for the theater

Table 11: Karen, ordered burger with half a bun rare-medium rare with frites sauce

Table 12: Eating appetizers, drinking Cotes Du Rhone

Table 15: Waiting for more frites after the first order wasn't enough, need more drinks

Table 16: Pleasent enough people. Waiting for apps....

And with that, the credit card machine whirrs to life: 

"Transaction Failed."

To Be Continued...

#63 "Highway 61, Retwisted." June 12, 2013

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You hear about haunted houses and buildings all the time in New York. There are even ghost tours that you can pay money to have people show you various spots in the city where there are tales of hauntings. Since this city is huge and it's history goes all the way back to the time before white people, you are guaranteed to be standing or working on the exact spot where someone or something was killed. Actually, if you think about it, every square inch of the earth is littered with the remains of something that was once alive, but that is a different, more complex story that I will get into at another time.
I have never seen anyone die in the restaurant, although I have seen people very close to dying and having to be taken out of the restaurant by the EMTs. It's always a scary thing to witness, but it's a thing that happens when you work in a place that is always open for the public to use. People die every day in all kinds of strange manners. Most of the time these people are not planning on dying that day, and so it's a surprise to them and the ones who are around them. Many years ago, I was working in the front of the restaurant and a young lady came in with her father and mother, which is a extremely common theme. But this night, things would end up being somewhat less than common. They had essentially just sat down at the table when I went over to get drink orders from them. As I approached, the young lady started screaming at me to call 9-11. Her father was having trouble breathing, and one look at him and I knew that, yes indeed, I should be calling 9-11. He looked awful; pale white skin with green undertones, an 1,000 yard stare in his eyes and barely breathing at all. It scared the crap out of me, so I took out my cell phone and dialed 9-11 for the first time in my life. I told the operator where we were and what was happening and to send an ambulance right away, and that was that; or so I thought. I went over to the manager to tell him that I had called and instead of being happy about it and saying that was a responsible thing to have done, he started screaming at me! He told me that I was under no circumstances to call 9-11, that it was his job to call 9-11. He said that he had already called when he overheard the young lady and my conversation and now he was yelling at me because the city was now probably sending over two ambulances. I know that sounds crazy, because it was. This manager from back then was crazy. He didn't like me very much and would use any excuse to yell at and berate me. I used to think all restaurant managers were insane and there was a special place in hell for them. No doubt I have talked about that at some point on this blog. I have since changed my tune a little bit, but now I have only upgraded it into the belief that restaurant managers are doomed to live out eternity managing restaurants in some strange purgatory-like restaurant that is always open.
So, anyway. One ambulance showed up and took the father away in a stretcher and out of the restaurant for the evening. I don't know if he died or not. He may have lived and is still a customer at the restaurant to this day. I did not know those people, so I wouldn't be able to remember them today. Since that surreal first time, I have seen the EMTs in the restaurant a handful of times. Every time I can remember, the person who needs them leaves the restaurant with full consciousness, thankfully. However, before the restaurant was in that location, there was a bar in it's place before it. Who knows how many people died there? And the fact that there are 100 apartments above the restaurant almost guarantees human death on that exact location at some point in time. All of this begs the question, where are all the ghosts?
I have closed that place up hundreds of times over the years and have never seen a ghost. How could this be possible? Yes, I have been a little freaked out on occasions very late at night when I am the only one in the whole place and there's no music and no sound. But even then, I am more freaked out about being robbed than about being scared by a ghost. Although now that I know restaurant managers are perpetually managing restaurants for eternity in the hereafter, I guess I should keep my guard up a little. After all, one our most evil managers died in mysterious circumstances about 5 years ago, so he may be haunting the establishment and I have merely not noticed. He's probably haunting a club though, now that I think of it. If I do end up seeing his ghost, I will certainly tell the NYC Ghost Tour people about it. This way we can diversify our clientele by adding occult members and finally get to the bottom of this haunted house thing. Because I really just want to know about the place across the street that I believe was built on an indian burial ground. But that, too, is a different story.

"Mind on Loup" Art Show Opening Tonight!

Join Tim and I tonight to celebrate our first Art Opening!

We are showing three prints (T&J #68, #74, and #77) at HiFi Bar on Avenue A in Manhattan this evening as part of the Launch Show. There is a lot of great art on the walls and we'll be partying and having a couple beverages. Thank you to all of our friends who are putting on the show and thank you to everyone who have been there since the beginning of this crazy project. It's been a fun trip!

#52 "Down in the Mouth" In Color! February 16, 2012

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I was probably coloring this one in exactly two years ago today. I think my computer was in a different location back then. So, instead of facing West, as I am now, I was facing East, looking at the opposite wall. Of course, Tim and I had finished this drawing over the summer of 2011, but we had so many to color that it took me until February to color this one. It's the same thing now, I am always a couple months behind. Sometimes more. In fact, this one marked the last T & J drawing that I worked on for almost a whole year. The year 2012 was a busy year for me and I felt like I didn't have the time to work on these drawings. I was working on writing and illustrating children's books for an iPad App called Mibblio that my buddy Sammy Rubin was developing. I worked on five books that year, illustrating four of them. If you have an iPad, you should download the App and grab a couple of my books; I think you will like them. It was a great experience, but it kept me extremely busy. However, because of that experience, my coloring style changed drastically, as you will see in the upcoming posts.  After such a long hiatus, I got extremely backed up with all of these drawings. Because, even though I wasn't coloring them anymore, we were still drawing all the time at the restaurant. That part never changes. As long as we are working in that place, we keep drawing pictures. At this point, it has become part of the routine at work. I think it is the best part of work sometimes. I think about the drawings sometimes when I'm not there and I wish that I was still working on them when I am at home. I know that this thought is insane. Who in their right mind would want to be at work just so they could work on an elaborate doodle that will someday, years in the future, end up on some blog that only 8 people read? Granted, 2013 was a very productive year for me and I was publishing one of these almost every week. But, I feel like I will never catch up unless either Tim or I quits the restaurant and we no longer draw these pictures. To give you an idea of how backed up I am on this blog: At present, we find ourselves looking at #52 in full color. Last week, I published #86 on Bookface. That means, for me to get caught up, I have to write 68 more blog posts since each picture gets two posts; one for the original Triple Dupe Pad drawing and one for the colored version. Those 8 of you loyal readers know that I write a blog maybe twice a month on average. That means I won't be caught up to #86 for 34 months, or roughly 3 years. Sometimes I write a little more than that, so we could average it to be 2 years from now that I will finally make it up to 86. I guess it's good to have goals.
  I used the word "have" but I guess I don't have to do anything. I enjoy writing these blog posts and I enjoy revisiting the drawings. I don't look at these drawings very much, so it's nice to see them a year or two down the line. They provide a window into the past for me. Some carry pleasant memories, some carry some unpleasant ones, but they all act as a time capsule for me. Some of the drawings I don't even remember drawing, but even those ones carry a reminder of a vague time somewhere in the past. In the mean time, the drawings keep coming down the stairs like the brooms carrying the buckets of water in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" and I couldn't  be happier about it.

#52 "Down in the Mouth" February 16, 2012

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This one is reminiscent of a bad dream. The kind of dream where you take out all of your teeth one by one and don't even mind doing it. You wake up and the rest of the day feels wrong, like there is something hanging over your head, or just beyond your peripheral vision that you can't describe, and when people ask you what's the matter, you reply, "I had the weirdest dream last night and I can't shake it." and they nod and say that they understand. Most of the times, people don't like hearing about your dreams because they are too personal to you and they don't corollate with the real world. Sure, sometimes your dreams are taking place in "real life" situations, in real cities or in real places, but most people just zone out when you tell them about your dreams. The only time people are really engaged in your dreams are the ones that these people are in, or least have a bit part in, and when you are recounting the dream,  you start off the conversation with, "You were in my dream last night."  But even then, these people assume that the two of you were having sex or something kinky, but usually intrigued and want to hear the whole thing. Then you start telling them about how the two of you were stealing acorns from a giant squirrel in Central Park and the listener soon loses interest.
The staff at the restaurant certainly has their fair share of work dreams and personally, I never bore of them. Not mine, of course, if I never have another work dream, it'll be too soon. Because when you have a work dream, it's never the happy times at work when you and the crew are sharing a good laugh or a smooth night where everything went great. No, it's always a chore and the work seems real and it's always the worst situations. I have very common themes in my work dreams and it's usually the same old crap from real life, but skewed and twisted so that it's even more annoying in the dream. And, like I've mentioned before, at least when real life is annoying at work, you are still getting paid. Thankfully, I rarely have these dreams, as I have heard that some people dream about work all the time, or at least once a week. That is too many times a week, as far as I am concerned.
My favorite dream that I have heard from the restaurant is from my co-worker Gary who had the most elaborate dream. In the dream, he was waiting tables, like normal, when his table ordered some drinks. He took down the drink order, went outside, and caught the crosstown bus on 14th Street. He took the bus crosstown to the East Side, and got the drinks at the bar, now located on the other side of town. Once he had the drinks, he loaded them onto his tray and got back on the bus, this time with a full tray of beverages, balancing the whole time back to the West Side. In typical customer fashion, when he delivered the drinks, one of the people in the party said, "Oh, that looks good, I'll have one of those as well." Gary then pleaded with the people saying, "You don't know what I had to go through to get these drinks!"
I personally love this dream mainly because I didn't have it, although it is one of the more amusing work dreams that I have heard. Mine are mostly drudgery and running out of glassware. I had a great one about dishes, but I have to save that one for later, because it was so funny that I integrated it into one of these drawings. You won't be able to read about it for sometime, because I think it's part of #81 or something. No, my work dreams are annoying even to me and so I rarely tell them to people outside the workplace. I think that telling people about your dreams is similar to telling non-coworkers about work. I am alway amazed when people come into the bar and start bitching about work. Granted, that's what bars are good for; you tell the bartender your woes and he or she can commiserate with you. However, I don't know your coworkers and the situations that present themselves on a daily basis at your job. You might be the jerk in the story, but since I am only hearing your side, I can only make half a judgement and agree with you that yes, work sucks an maybe Jimmy is being unfair in his treatment of you and your team. Because of this, I rarely talk about work outside of the restaurant except on this blog. Even on this blog, I try to stay positive about the workplace and try to look at even the negative parts in an objective light. This way, I can look at work from a new perspective when I am there and try to keep a positive attitude while working. Otherwise, I will turn into an embittered old man prematurely. Like, say, next year instead of two years from now.
This, however, will not make my work dreams cease to exist. No matter how positive I stay at work, I will probably always have dreams where I am in the weeds at the restaurant. Even if I left the business today, and never worked in another restaurant, I'm sure these dreams would resurface every once and a while. In fact, I recently had a dream where I started working at my first restaurant job after not working there for 20 years. I was the new guy again and I didn't know where some of the stuff was even though we were already busy and I was expected to know my way around since I had worked there in the past. It ended up evolving into some other nightmare, but when I woke up, I thought it was kind of funny, that 20 years later, I was still dreaming about my first restaurant job. I'm sure I had plenty of dreams about the old place when I actually worked there, but the restaurant had evolved and turned into the new places of my life. Then, all of a sudden, I found myself back there, where nothing had changed and I was out of glassware, the customers kept appearing out of nowhere, the dining room was angled at a dangerous pitch,  and I was right back in the weeds where I started. But you don't really want to hear about it anyway.

#43 "Two Twenty Two in the Garden of Eden" in Color October 26, 2011

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This one was posted right after my birthday in 2011. I must have been working on the coloring for a while because I know I wasn't working on it on my actual birthday. That was what I now call my "burger birthday." The night before, I had gone out and stayed out late with a couple buddies and my friend Andy Nauss ended up crashing at my house. The next morning we got up and were both in the mood for burgers. We went over to the Cafe Colette and each had a burger. Their burgers are incredibly underrated. In fact, they are the perfect breakfast burger; sweet, savory, and with the "special sauce," perfect! As you may or may not know, breakfast also doubles as lunch for me, so my next meal would be dinner. I went over to my friends house in Carroll Gardens and invited a bunch of people over for a cookout and birthday activities (drinking and smoking). We ended up getting burgers and grilling them out on the porch. I said something like, "funny, this is the second burger I've had today." and Tim looked at me and smiled a huge smile. The reason for his giant grin would become apparent all too soon. After everyone was fully noshed and setting in for the old food coma, out came the birthday cake, which was in the shape of a giant cheeseburger! My friends had gone out and gotten the cake without the knowledge of my breakfast choice, and had simply gotten the cheeseburger cake because of its absurdity. Obviously I loved it, but when everyone found out that I had only eaten burgers on that particular day, it became truly funny and poignant. I don't want you to think that I only eat burgers, although I do love them. At the Loup I have one about once a month, and sometimes actually crave a Cafe Loup burger. They are pretty darn good, some say the best burger in New York City. While high in the running (top twenty at least) I think best in NYC is a bit of a stretch. I think Best Burger on 13th Street is a better assessment. However, they are delicious. I can never eat a whole burger there anymore though. I will usually get one and cut it into quarters and share with whomever is working that night, doling out quarters. I can eat three quarters tops, and that's if no one really feels like sharing, but I find that half of the burger is more than sufficient to my needs.
I remember this picture taking a long time to color in. There is a lot of action happening and a lot of intricate little characters. The thing on the left I tried to keep the same color from the spilled bitters on the faces of the people growing out of the alien head. That also goes for the little "world dog" over on the right. They are different colors because we used two different kinds of bitters for those stains. This was when we were staining the dupe pads with bitters to add some color and also as a motivational tool. There's nothing like some randomness to help spurn creativity. You might have done that activity in your high school art class. The teacher would've asked you to draw completely random things, possibly without looking, then make you find some sort of shape in the randomness and turn it into something you can grasp. I remember liking that activity although now I think that most people will see what they always see, like in a Rorschach picture. I always draw faces, so I would probably will a face out of the chaos. Maybe not, sometimes when I look at the clouds I see monkeys on jet-skis and bears on the couch. I guess if I looked at any of these things today, I would see a cheeseburger. I bet you all a quarter that we will have burgers for staff meal tonight at the Cafe Loup.
I'll keep you updated.

#41 "The 35th Annual Women's Mini Golf Invitational" September 6, 2011 in Color!

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With the color on this one I tried to keep the same palette as the triple dupe pad. I used the same color from the bitters on the eyes of the characters on the far left and right, and then the skin tone on all main characters is from the dupe pad itself. The rest of the color I thought looked pretty good all faded out and classic looking. This is still the only one that I used this technique with. Most of the usual coloring is done as colorful as possible, and though it has changed significantly over the years, it still remains vibrant and psychedelic as ever. The right side of this drawing might have fared better with more elements of psychedelia, but who can tell; that might have just made that side a gross generalization and  stereotypical "spaced out hippie" drawing. Pun intended. As it is, this is a little wink at the Cafe Loup itself. I was just checking the interwebs about some history about the Loup and there doesn't seem to be any written history about the place. It doesn't have a Wikipedia entry anyway. The history as I know it has been passed down by word of mouth, which is exactly what the current owners, Lloyd and Ardes want. In fact, that is how we advertise there as well, strictly word of mouth. So, I may be doing the restaurant a disservice by creating a history about the place here on this blog, but it is only a history of my experience there so it is incomplete, one sided, and possibly completely wrong. But here is the history as I know it. Back in 1977 a couple named Bruce and Roxanne wanted to open up a nice little French Bistro in Greenwich Village. They found a place on 13th Street between University and 5th Avenue across the street from Les Trois Petits Cochons, which translates into english as "The Three Little Pigs." Bruce and Roxanne thought it would be a good idea to set up their French Bistro across from this charcuterie and call it Cafe Loup, or "The Wolf Cafe." Cute, right? On a side note, the Loup still gets our pate from Les Trois Petits Cochons and if you can get your hands on some, I highly recommend it. So, Lloyd was the head chef there right from the beginning and he, Bruce and Roxanne served the Village for 12 years over there on 13th Street. In 1989 they moved locations, to the much larger space at 105 West 13th Street where it remains today. A couple years later, in 1995, Lloyd and Ardes bought the place from Bruce and Roxanne and have been running it since then. Almost 20 years! Amazing. I have only met Bruce and Roxanne a couple of times, but I guess they ran a pretty tight ship. Some of the people that still work at the Loup have been there since the early 90's and would be able to go into more detail about how it was working there back then, but I just don't know that much about that time. I do know that not that much has changed. I still get customers who come in and say, "I haven't been here since it was in the old location." Those same people remark on how the food is still the same and that it still has the same vibe that it had when it was just a small 20 seat place on the other side of 5th Avenue. So, the title of this drawing is a homage to the 35 years the Cafe Loup has been open. The stamp on the right hand side is the stamp we still use to stamp customers cash receipts and use on our envelopes. Of course, we don't have an Annual Women's Mini Golf Tournament, but I think if we did, it would look very similar to this picture. I think the Golf Tournament is a metaphor for something or other, I just don't know what it is for.
Your guess is as good as mine.