PrintVeselka Slammed with Michael Cera Fans Over the Weekend
Harry and Sally had a mind-blowing lunch at Katz's. Carrie Bradshaw satisfied her sweet tooth with Magnolia cupcakes. And of course, there's Seinfeld and the Soup Nazi. For as long as movies and television shows have filmed scenes in New York restaurants, fans and tourists have been flocking to them.
Michael Cera might not be as established as Billy Crystal, as suave as Chris Noth, or as iconic as Jerry Seinfeld, but he is fast becoming one of Hollywood's leading young men. His latest flick, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, opened last Friday and Tom Birchard, owner of the restaurant Veselka, reports that they were "slammed all weekend."
One of the final scenes of the movie features Cera and leading lady Kat Dennings at the East Village Ukrainian eatery feasting on pierogies. Evidently fans (we're guessing the bulk of them were NYU freshman girls) flooded Veselka, which is open 24 hours, after seeing the film at nearby theaters. Of course, Cera was nowhere in sight (he divides his time between Canada and Los Angeles), but what better way to console a crush than with a steaming bowl of soul-warming borscht?
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4 Comments:
It was fun to see Veslka in the movie...also everything else in a 10 block radius of the restaurant. Also featured in the movie: The Bowery Ballroom, Arelen's grocery, Grey's Pappaya, Union Pool...
JudgeFudge at 2:06PM on 10/06/08
good to see all this success after being in the best sitcom ever produced...
i'll never understand why so many restaurants have crappy flash-filled websites with pdf-only menus. they are pretty much unusable.
union pool? great, that's just what that place needed to become even MORE annoying. i hadn't realized any of the movie was set in brooklyn.
sloppy at 3:47PM on 10/06/08
@Sloppy - This sounds pathetic but, in general, I'm happy when a restaurant even has a website. It's unthinkable these days, but there are many restaurants in Cleveland, mostly mom and pop, I've been meaning to check out that don't even have websites, so I don't bother patronizing.
The website doesn't even have to be pretty, just a link, address, phone number, hours of operation, and a scanned menu would do, similar to Magnolia Bakery's, which is a great example of pretty, neat, and simple. Veselka's site is pretty snazzy. I'm that easy to please.
Cassaendra at 10:34AM on 10/07/08
Veselka is actually kind of great at the web because they actually update their menus with the daily specials! Very few other places do so.
Looks like I'll keep getting my pierogi at Ukrainian Restaurant inside of Ukrainian National Home, though. They aren't 24 hour but the pierogi are slightly better. Very traditional and the setting is great.
Veselka still has the lockdown on the nouveau pierogi, though, (pumpkin, arugula and goat cheese, etc.).
kathryn at 3:14PM on 10/07/08