My brother once cooked at an awkwardly undersized breakfast place in the Greenwood neighborhood of Seattle that was once reviewed under the headline: The Unhappiest Place on Earth. The cafe featured cramped tables and mismatched furniture that looked more cheap than campy as well as a perfectly stereotypical, dim-witted, busy-body owner that just wouldn't leave diners alone to eat their meals, acting more as a nuisance and agitator than a hostess. The full-time indifference of the twenty-two year-old waitress was palpable in such a cramped space. The way I remember it, she'd suffered the loss her boyfriend in an automobile accident and although it had happened several years before breakfast, she was engrossed in such a profound and prolonged anguish that she just didn't feel up to bringing out toast or topping off coffee or really even taking orders in the first place. The short review also mentioned the visible anger of the cook, our hero, barking at the waitress's absent-minded, time-consuming mistakes and grumbling aloud from behind the pick-up window about every little break in his routine. The author of the review may even have suggested that he find another line of work. I'm pretty sure Corey would have agreed with him just before suggesting that he shove it up his ass.
Welcome to Shopsin's, a hole-in-the-wall, New York restaurant where not only is the customer not always right, but that they're automatically assumed wrong in the first and are always encouraged by the proprietor to show themselves out if they don't like it. Kenny Shopsin and his tiny restaurant is the subject of Matt Mahurin's I Like Killing Flies, the hunger-enducing documentary that chronicles the pending move of Shopsin's, a small but near legendary breakfast and lunch joint in Greenwich Village, famous for a menu that boasts literally hundreds and hundreds of menu items as well as the sparkling personality of quite possibly the angriest cook on the east coast. A cross between Vic Tayback's Mel, the cook on Alice and Adam, the reclusive and perpetually agitated genius chef played by Adam Arkin on Northern Exposure, Shopsin is an indelicate master of his menu who mixes with his fingers and is more than happy to tell dining parties larger than 4 people to get the hell out. His unapologetic approach to his craft and the environment from which he chooses to serve his dishes has obviously served him well, but the pending move from such a successful and distinct location and the uncertainty of the transition to an untested and unfamiliar environment serves as an interesting backdrop to Shopsin's already colorful personality as he's slowly forced to loosen his grip on the familiar digs and the delicate routine he'd developed over the years.
Since the film's release in 2004, Shopsin's has apparently moved once again in response to escalating Manhattan rent. When asked if he wanted to comment on the move, Shopsin was quoted as saying: "Why don't you just make something fucking up? That's what you're going to do anyway."
Man, you just can't beat his approach to publicity.
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