A New Brand On Bowery, Robert Pattinson Meme Origins, Taqueria Ramirez and MORE

Your Weekly News Update Is Here

May 14, 2024

Welcome to Prix Fixe - Medium Rare’s hyperlocal news roundup.

Hope everyone is enjoying their Tuesday Lunch. There is no groundbreaking format here — it’s merely a recap of some NYC / Fashion / Food news along with general internet things I find interesting that are worth sharing.

I noticed a lot of “brand consultants”, agency, and PR emails signed up last week. Thank you for tuning in — it means a lot — if you have anything coming out that could make sense for this please send it over via email. Maybe I’ll have to call that section à la carte though. haha…. sorry… bad joke..

Anyway..… here’s what’s on the menu.

I CANNOT LOOK AT MY INSTAGRAM WITHOUT SEEING THIS HORNY MF

During a 5 minute CitiBike ride up Avenue A last Friday on my way to watch the Knicks game — I saw three separate groups of 20ish year olds snapping pics of this flyer that’s seemingly on every pole south of 14th street and west of Astor Place. Dan Perino is the man behind the flyer and he actually put similar ones up 10 years ago - it garnered a similar reaction — some website called “VICE” interviewed him in 2014 about his guerilla marketing campaign for love.

Dan has even inspired a quirky local musician to use the same format in promoting her upcoming show. #InnovationThatExcites

Greenpoint’s Taqueria Ramirez is expanding to the East Village with Carnitas Ramirez on 3rd Street.

I’d love to see if we can somehow get the line from Apollo Bagel’s and the inevitable line for Carnitas Ramirez to connect and form one mega TikTok foodie line. Read more about it on Grubstreet (side note — Apollo Bagels is significantly better than Popup Bagels — I want to be on the record with that statement)

A NEW BRAND ON BOWERY

If you’ve walked by the corner of Canal and Bowery within the last week on your way to get some some Crispy Prawn Heads at Cervo’s you may have seen this new billboard. A serious upgrade from the previous ad slotted here that was for an ambiguous AI company that read something like “AI your people will love”. Dark times.

Anyway, This new ad is for Vowels — a made-in-japan but NYC based luxury brand that just dropped their inaugural collection. Yuki Yagi, founder + creative director, who grew up between Kyoto and NYC is leading the effort on bringing this brand to life (along with a very experienced marketing + operations team working with him). Just across the street from this billboard is Vowel’s showroom + research library located at 76 Bowery which includes an extensive collection of rare magazines + printed works that will be open to the public starting May 15th. We all know a retail shop isn’t complete without some sort of artisanal coffee aspect which this space will also have.

My Tiktok squirrel brain is jealous of the long term organization, focus and genuine passion it would require to create a space like this. I’m sure I’ll be able to whip up some good memes about Vowels as it opens to the public. I just think the jokes will be directed at the art bro who’s going to spend 45 minutes rifling through Vowel’s print archive and mistake mansplaining the cultural importance of a magazine as flirting to an innocent female bystander lmao.

Check out their website to see the full collection. Like I said — it leans luxury and the prices reflect that. This is a #TEMU free zone. The Denim will run you $390 and up, an oxford button down $375 and the sweatpants $245.

You can DM them on Instagram to schedule a viewing as it will be appointment only.

NYT’S PETE WELLS KINDA COOKS GREENPOINT’S ILIS IN REVIEW DROPPING TODAY

Medium Rare’s Prix Fixe roundup is appropriately on the case for the latest Wells review of New York’s most talked about Prix Fixe / Tasting Menu opening of the last year. I obtained the review that I believe is dropping later today through a PDF sent to a 32-person group chat I’m in. He compares the Greenpoint “New Nordic” spot more so to an arts and crafts studio than a Noma replica. He says there are moments when you truly believe you are at one of the best restaurants in NYC of the past year but those feelings quickly fade. I still haven’t eaten there. Keep an eye out for that.

VF Corp promotes Geraldo Rodriguez as Global VP of Energy Marketing and Collaborations for Timberland, The North Face, and Vans.

Rodriguez has been the Global Head of Energy Marketing of Timberland the last 3 years. He announced this move via an instagram post Monday morning. I’ll be eager to see if he can bring similar attention that Timbs has received during his tenure to the other two brands. I think It’s time for a DAMN DANIEL BACK AT IT AGAIN WITH THE WHITE VANS type moment for Vans.

ORIGIN OF ROBERT PATTINSON STANDING IN KITCHEN MEME #CONFIRMED

This meme is anything but breaking news — you couldn’t escape this pic in some variation or another in 2020 — and I think many A24 incels knew what movie this photo came from but last week we got confirmation on who took the original photo….

On Thursday, stylist and costume designer, Miyako Bellizzi posted this photo on her IG revealing she took the photo from from a fitting for Good Time in the apartment Robert Pattinson was living in at the time.

Many assumed this was from Good Time but it’s great to get some closure on a piece of internet history. Bellizzi is a #legendary New York based costume designer and stylist. If you’re unfamiliar with her work — she was the costume designer for Uncut Gems, Good Time, and War Pony along with styling for countless projects at Interview, Vogue, Hommegirls etc. She was also the stylist for this New York Mag cover in 2021.

This is not the first time Bellizzi’s BTS footage took hold of the internet. This photo of Oscar Isaac taken in 2021 from her work on Scenes From A Marriage racked up nearly 50,000 likes and hundreds of millions of views on other platforms.

This photo had everyone in the world that knows at least one person who went to Bard, Vassar or Wesleyan quote tweeting this pic with some variation of “dadddyyyyyy”.

welll.. that’s it for this week !! feel free to send anything to team@dirtbagindustries.net that you think is worth sharing or just reply here