Building a Big Business With a Small Bar
Photo Caption: New York's Blue Quarter features $15 tea-inflected cocktails. Blue Quarter
Skift Take
Bars are starting to look a whole lot like each other, but in an economic climate where the small guy often takes the fall, tiny bars armed with focus and imagination have an unusual opportunity to attract attention and thrive.
It was packed as usual at Amor y Amargo, the bitters-centric watering hole in New York’s East Village, on the night that Shai Zvibak dropped by. The chef/owner of nearby Mediterranean restaurant Local 92 was impressed by the bevy of stirred drinks graciously turned out in the tiny room with the six-stool bar, and so he approached beverage director Sother Teague. “Shai said, ‘You guys kill it in this little space. I have a little space, too,’” recalled Teague.
Teague and Amor y Amargo barkeep Max Green took a gander at Zvibak’s underutilized lair, a former private dining nook so awkwardly shaped that Zvibak had a difficult time booking it for large parties, and immediately they saw its potential, re-imagined as a bar. Together, Teague and Green — who serves as co-owner and head bartender — transformed the narrow room into Blue Quarter, an 18-seat den that telegraphs the Middle East and Morocco. A clever list of $15 tea-inflected cocktails complements Zvibak’s cooking,
