RIP, Kenny Shopsin, New York City's greatest restaurateur

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/09/04/pinkwaterian-ubermensch.html

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That’s sad. I knew his son when I was growing up. I lost touch with him (the son, not the dad, who I never spoke more than 2 words to) when I graduated high school.

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Is that some sort of NYC take on nachos? It actually looks pretty good, if weird to this Austinite.

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I Like Killing Flies

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I knew Mr. Shopsin and his restaurant only from Calvin Trillin’s profile in The New Yorker.

“restaurateur”

What sad news. His food was damn good.

I never really understood how a business could survive by shitting on potential customers.

I loved Kenny’s cookbook and the documentary about him, and hoped to some day visit NYC to eat his bonkers food and probably get insulted or sworn at. Not getting to eat Kenny’s food is one of my small list of personal culinary regrets. At least he taught me how to cut up a bell pepper and make terrific crepes out of flour tortillas.

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Sorry for your loss. A restaurant you can rely on is a rare and precious thing, even more so in this case since he was the heart and soul of the place.

NYT Magazine: Flipping the Bird, Oct. 9, 2008 : https://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12food-t.html

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I’m honored that boingboing used my photo for this post. I only ate at shopsins a few times but I did once witness kenny kick someone out. so I feel like I got the true shopsins experience without getting kicked out myself. I have faith that it will live on.

And yes, those are indeed, breakfast nachos. Those aren’t new york’s version of nachos, they are kenny’s version of breakfast nachos.

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I just noticed the amazing URL for this story (pinkwaterian-ubermensch.html). I don’t know if Daniel Pinkwater ever ate at Shopsin’s but can only imagine he and Kenny cheerfully swearing at each other, DP in his Yiddish wempire voice, over a plate of food straight out of the Magic Moscow.

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