This New York Dinner Party Requires You to Eat Naked With Strangers

A new dinner series requires patrons to dine without clothes on. The Füde Dinner Experience is “a liberating space that celebrates our most pure selves, through plant-based cooking, art, nudity, & self-love,” per a New York Times report. Held on the Lower East Side by Charlie Ann Max, an artist and model, tickets cost $88 per person for the vegan meal, and applications for attendance are required to be submitted through its website. It’s an extension of other naked events Max had worked on throughout the pandemic in NYC. As the Times reported in a separate story about cooking while naked, the purpose of going clothes-free at these dinners isn’t sexual: It’s about feeling uninhibited, per the publication.

Thief cocktail bar is expanding to Manhattan

Thief, a Williamsburg bar from a Katana Kitten alum that opened in 2021, known for its friesling on tap, is expanding with another location, this time on the Lower East Side. The bar is set to debut at 161 Ludlow Street, near Stanton Street, on April 20. The kitchen is helmed by Dan Gonzalez, formerly of upscale Manhattan restaurants Marea, Estela, and Blanca; he’s making sandwiches with a cacio e pepe dip and smash burgers with onion jam.

March was a dark month for diners

How many more diner closures can this city take? In March alone, reports of Neil’s Coffee Shop and 3 Guys closing on the Upper East Side made headlines. Now, local publication QNS reports that Bayside Diner, in Bayside, Queens, held its last day of service on March 28. The diner has served the area for more than six decades, originally under the name the Copper Penny Diner.

Comedy Cellar owner buys a Greenwich Village McDonald’s

A McDonald’s location known for late-night chaos is now in the hands of Noam Dworman, owner of the Comedy Cellar, per the New York Post. The former burger chain, located at 136 W. Third Street, near Sixth Avenue, will become a third comedy venue for Dworman, who operates the Comedy Cellar and the Village Underground a few blocks over.