A Creative Stretch: Grinders West
By CHARLES FERRUZZA
If all goes according to plan – and in the restaurant business, it almost never does – Grinders West, the newest restaurant concept created by artist and entrepreneur known as Stretch, will open at the end of this month. I stopped by the nearly complete space, in the mustard-colored building next to the original Grinders. This building used to be an unassuming and underused performing arts space (I once saw Queen Bey do a one-woman show in here); Stretch has given it a dramatic face lift, including a unique baroque pediment adornment, kind of like the top of New York City’s Sony Building. But smaller.
Stretch says Grinders West will be a delicatessen serving soups, salads and sandwiches. And that it will be a lot slicker than the bawdier Grinders right next door.
Earlier this year, Stretch poured a terrazzo-style floor with bits of stone and pieces of dark blue glass – the shattered relics of his former “collection” of Skye Vodka bottles. The shiny stainless steel kitchen will be somewhat mobile, with food prep stations on wheels. “We’re going to offer cooking classes in here,” he says.
The most stunning artistic statement in the building is the very tall assemblage of 40 glass lenses – made for front-loading dishwashers – that have been sandblasted, then mounted in lines of four with a computer-controlled lighting system that flashes different colored lights in a hypnotic series of patterns. “We can program over six million combinations,” Stretch says.
Which may be only slightly fewer combinations than the number of possible sandwiches prepared in the exhibition kitchen when Grinders West opens.
3 comment(s) / Post a Comment
Dearest darling Stretch,
In my opinion your service at Grinders sucks for the most part. (Being honest. Not grinding an ax here.... )
Waited 25 minutes for a beer on the last first fridays. Gave up any thought of ordering food. There were 10 of u$ $itting out$ide.
Might need to $chedule more than two wait$taff on those nights, and get some bbq grill action going out$ide. We just wanted food...not fine dining. Our needs are simple. Better yet, start giving away free shots so we don't dehydrate and riot!
Hope you do better in this new endeavor.
We will honestly give your new place a shot, but unless you up the service level we won't be making it a destination for the gang.
Best of luck!
Posted On: Tuesday, Sep. 9 2008 @ 12:50PMDearest darling Stretch,
In my opinion your service at Grinders sucks for the most part. (Being honest. Not grinding an ax here.... )
Waited 25 minutes for a beer on the last first fridays. Gave up any thought of ordering food. There were 10 of u$ $itting out$ide.
Might need to $chedule more than two wait$taff on those nights, and get some bbq grill action going out$ide. We just wanted food...not fine dining. Our needs are simple. Better yet, start giving away free shots so we don't dehydrate and riot!
Hope you do better in this new endeavor.
We will honestly give your new place a shot, but unless you up the service level we won't be making it a destination for the gang.
Best of luck!
Posted On: Tuesday, Sep. 9 2008 @ 12:50PMStretch and Grinder's--both are acquired tastes.
Posted On: Thursday, Sep. 11 2008 @ 7:30AM
