Had a great week out around the neighborhood. We finally got to Liar Liar for dinner. The steak frites and the chicken sammie were both so worth it, and their wine list has to be the longest in the neighborhood! Also caught the hilarious Gary Gulman set at Union Hall.
One important note if you haven’t seen this elsewhere, the Atlantic Antic has been postponed to October 4.

Now Open / Coming Soon — Caputo's legacy bakery name returns to the neighborhood, in bagel form

The Big Story — Who decides what goes into Gowanus's new ground floors?

Things to Do — A weekend of comedy and nightlife despite the rain

The Local — A milestone birthday for one of Smith Street's oldest restaurants

Development Watch — Two buildings taking shape on DeGraw Street and Hoyt Street

Quick Hits — A puppy playdate this Saturday in Carroll Gardens

An Uncle and Nephew Open an Italian Shop on Court Street
Il Quartiere
371 Court Street
Now open
Il Quartiere is a small Italian shop run by an uncle and his nephew, tucked in next to Ven. Space. Details are still thin, but the concept fits a stretch of Court Street that's long rewarded exactly this kind of small, family-run spot.

Still Missing That Lard Bread??
Caputo Bagels
5th Avenue near Park Place
Coming Soon
James Caputo's family bakery closed on Court Street after five generations, and Carroll Gardens has been missing that lard bread ever since. Now the name is coming back in an unexpected form, a collaboration with Rafi Hasid of Miriam. The bagels split the difference on New York style, medium-sized, a slightly crisp crust, a looser crumb, with a tang from Caputo's 45-year-old sourdough starter. Expect them topped with lox and harissa cream cheese or built into an Acme whitefish salad sandwich, and yes, that lard bread is said to be coming back too, in bagel form. Opens October 5.

Gowanus Fitness Keeps It Simple
Gowanus Fitness
310 Butler Street
Curated pick
A strength and conditioning gym that's built a real following without much fuss about it. Owner Brad runs it more like a neighborhood spot than a chain, which is probably why people stick around.

Part 1

Every neighborhood watching a rezoning plan turn into real estate eventually asks some version of the same question. Who decides what goes into all that new space, and who makes sure it isn't just whoever can afford the highest rent? In Gowanus, some of that answer runs through Igloo, the real estate firm curating 420 Carroll's storefronts.

If you've wondered why 420 Carroll's storefronts have gone to a brewery, a natural wine shop, and a pottery studio instead of a bank branch and a Chipotle, Igloo is the reason. We sat down with co-founder Adam Joly and Vincent Gaulin, whose background is in design and construction, to find out how they're making those calls. What we got was a substantive conversation about what makes a neighborhood, what kind of retail helps a community grow, and how developers can be a constructive part of a neighborhood's evolution.

Take Hey Clay. Owner Cauvery Patel had been watching 420 Carroll go up floor by floor from her apartment across the canal, and when she started looking for a studio space in the winter of 2023, it was the first place on her list. She wasn't expecting a yes. "I was genuinely surprised that they were open to a pottery studio run by a first-time entrepreneur," she told us. It turned out to be the only space she needed to look at. Igloo tells it much the same. They met Patel in the neighborhood and felt it was a natural fit right away, a complement to Gowanus's existing culture of artistic production, the Textile Arts Center down the street, and Powerhouse Arts next door along the canal. Since opening, Hey Clay has seen a steady stream of students come through its doors. Who could have predicted that in a neighborhood still mid-construction? Maybe Igloo did.

That instinct, picking a tenant because they belong, is the trait Igloo says sets its approach apart. And it runs against how most people assume developers operate.

"Developers are easy to be portrayed as a villain of every story of every neighborhood," Gaulin told us. "The reality is, all developers aren't created equal." Igloo's job, as he describes it, is finding the ones who are genuinely different, then translating what they want into a mix of tenants a neighborhood welcomes instead of just tolerates. Left alone, he said, the market tends toward what he called "sameification," the Dunkin' and Chipotle version of every corridor in every city.

Both Joly and Gaulin got their start in Williamsburg in the early 2000s, when the DIY energy Gowanus is often credited with came from people building things with their own hands in buildings nobody else wanted yet. Joly lived in Gowanus with his family years before the rezoning was official, and sat in on city planning sessions while it was still a proposal, taking in what residents raised as concerns along the way. "We try not to be tone deaf in any neighborhood we work in," he said.

That kind of relationship building shows up elsewhere too. Igloo's tie to Focal Point Brewing goes back seven or eight years, long before the Long Island City brewery even considered a second location. Getting a first look at tenants before the rest of the market notices a neighborhood is changing, Joly says, comes from relationships built years in advance, not a phone call after a space opens up.

But someone, eventually, has to say no to the highest bidder. We asked what happens if a national chain offered full asking rent for a space Igloo had already earmarked for something smaller and more homegrown. Turning away the better offer, they said, is the only way curation means anything instead of just being a nicer word for whoever pays the most. Not every business that wants a space at 420 Carroll gets invited in, and they seemed comfortable saying so.

That's what we can thank Igloo for. A ground floor filled with a pottery studio, a brewery, and a wine shop, rather than more of the same. Igloo is already at work on another building in the neighborhood, the Majestic on Sackett Street, where they're placing anchor restaurants alongside plans for art studio space and conversations underway about fitness and lifestyle tenants to complement the park next door. We'll take a look at what actually lands there once leases are signed.

Art Where You Are, Creating Emerging Worlds at Powerhouse Arts
322 3rd Avenue
Sat Sep 26 · 1pm
Family-friendly, hands-on, and indoors, which counts for something with the Antic no longer part of the weekend.

Piece of Work, a new hour from Michael Cruz Kayne at Union Hall
702 Union Street
Sat Sep 26 · 5pm
A Peabody-winning Late Show writer testing new material in a basement bar. Lower stakes than a Netflix taping, that's the appeal.

Beth Stelling, Let Me Get Loose at Bell House
149 7th Street
Sat Sep 26 · 7pm and 9:30pm
A Netflix special and late-night credits, Conan included, explain the draw. Two shows Saturday.

Soul Clap, A Lana, Nita Aviance, Dee Diggs, David Paglia at Public Records
233 Butler Street
Sat Sep 26 · 11pm to 4am · 21+
Soul Clap's last show as a pair, six hours of house across two rooms.

Shelter, Timmy Regisford Open to Close at Public Records
233 Butler Street
Sun Sep 27 · 3pm
The Maestro himself behind the decks. Soulful house, the way it used to sound before the genre got a hundred subgenres.

Musicians of Comedy with Pat Byrne and Tom Peters at Bell House
149 7th Street
Sun Sep 27 · 3:30pm
Two comics who've been at this long enough to make it look easy.

Mindy Raf, Stand-up Special Taping at Littlefield
635 Sackett Street
Sun Sep 27 · 6pm and 8:30pm
A taping means an audience that actually matters. Two shows, get there on time.

Croz Boyce, Masaaki at Public Records
233 Butler Street
Tue Sep 29 · 7pm
Avey Tare and Geologist of Animal Collective, under their house alias, backed by Masaaki.

The Moth StorySLAM at Bell House
149 7th Street
Wed Sep 30 · 8pm
Strangers, ten-minute time limits, a theme nobody gets to see in advance. Same premise every time, never the same night twice.

King Mei Mei Debut, Charlene Kaye's 40th at Littlefield
635 Sackett Street
Wed Sep 30 · 8pm
Charlene Kaye's been Charlene Kaye, been KAYE, toured with San Fermin and StarKid, sold out Netflix Is A Joke and Edinburgh Fringe. King Mei Mei is her glam-punk reinvention, live for the first time, on her 40th birthday.

Nick Mestad, Body of Work at Union Hall
702 Union Street
Thu Oct 1 · 10pm
A new hour from a comic building a following the old-fashioned way, one club show at a time.

Nate Varrone at Bell House
149 7th Street
Thu Oct 1 · 10pm
A TV writer with credits on Vulture, McSweeney's, and Tooning Out the News, plus a podcast he co-hosts with Eric Rahill and Jack Bensinger. Also invented a character called Mr. Simp. Make of that what you will.

Atlantic Antic at Atlantic Avenue LDC
Atlantic Avenue
Sun Oct 4 · Noon to 6pm
Postponed from its original date. Fifty-one years running, Brooklyn's oldest and largest street fair. Food, vendors, live music on multiple stages, three separate kids' zones spread along Atlantic from Hicks Street to Fourth Avenue.

Heel Toe Rodeo at Littlefield
635 Sackett Street
Tue Oct 6 · 7:30pm
Beginner-friendly line dancing, taught throughout the night by Juliet Hartz, open floor dancing after. Boots optional.

Bar Tabac
128 Smith Street
Open daily, 11am to 11pm, until 11:30pm Friday and Saturday

The frites are the reason people keep coming back, crisp outside, moist inside, salted just right, with a grilled steak on the side if you want it. But at Bar Tabac, the food is really just the excuse. The five-dollar bistro bites, skewered scallops, merguez, and escargot are built for a table that's going to be there a while, and the small pot of Dijon on every table and the foosball table by the door aren't decoration; they're the point.

Owner Georges Forgeois opened the place on the corner of Smith and Dean in 2001, and twenty-five years later it's still the anchor of what's left of Cobble Hill's French expat scene. Forgeois is from Saint-Rémy de Provence, and it shows most on Bastille Day, when Smith Street between Bergen and Pacific actually shuts down for what's grown into the largest pétanque tournament in the country, 80 teams, thousands of people, the whole block covered in sand.

Most weeks it's just slightly quieter than that. Live music six nights, a brunch crowd that treats the mussels like a religion, and a dining room that still looks like a bar in Provence decided to open a restaurant instead of the other way around.

The Majestic Rises on Sackett Street
Domain Companies' 255-unit building at 540 DeGraw Street is nearing completion, fronting DeGraw Street, Sackett Street, and Nevins Street. Twenty-five percent of the units will be affordable, and the building sits beside Thomas Greene Park. Domain is also the developer behind 420 Carroll, this issue's Big Story.

Ailanthus Proposes 400 Apartments and a School on Hoyt Street
Ailanthus, led by Ofer Cohen, Vivian Liao, and Tucker Reed, is proposing a 17-story, 175-foot building at 424 Hoyt Street with 400 apartments, 100 to 120 of them affordable, a 46,000-square-foot public school, and 14,000 square feet of retail. The site is currently a food-truck lot within the old Citizens manufactured gas plant footprint, one of four parcels along the canal still working through state-supervised cleanup. This is currently a proposal. Nothing has broken ground.

Animal Loving Care is hosting a "Bark to School" puppy playdate Saturday at 1pm, 556 Court Street, open to puppies under 7 months. Expect a lesson on recall or place, then Q&A with the owner.

Get outside before the weather changes its mind.

If something's happening out there, we want to know about it. Email, photo, neighborhood gossip — we'll take it.
[email protected].

Exploring Gowanus · Every Saturday