{"id":3048,"date":"2011-01-07T20:31:05","date_gmt":"2011-01-07T20:31:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/?p=3048"},"modified":"2011-01-08T11:34:45","modified_gmt":"2011-01-08T11:34:45","slug":"cake-shop-ludlow-street-new-york-photos-and-memories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/cake-shop-ludlow-street-new-york-photos-and-memories\/","title":{"rendered":"Cake Shop, Ludlow Street, New York – photos and memories"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cake<\/p>\n

Situated on New York’s almost-completely gentrified Lower East Side at 152 Ludlow Street is the Cake Shop, a small cafe\/music venue where we’ve spent many hours, scoffing bagels, surfing the web, supping coffees or grabbing a beer.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Cake<\/p>\n

Slightly\u00a0reminiscent\u00a0of the\u00a0wonderfully\u00a0shambolic 12 Bar<\/a> in Denmark Street Soho, London, the upstairs room is a long and narrow affair, with the cafe counter nearest the door.<\/p>\n

There used to be a great record store in the back, but that got smaller and smaller over the years until it finally\u00a0shifted\u00a0to a tiny space next to the door.<\/p>\n

Now it’s less of a record store as a few magazine racks on the wall with some vinyl records stuffed in them, another victim of the digital age.<\/p>\n

\"Cake<\/p>\n

\"Cake<\/p>\n

One of the precious few remaining venues on the Lower East Side that hasn’t been\u00a0completely taken over by\u00a0hipster and ‘young\u00a0professionals,’ \u00a0it’s a great place to grab a coffee or do some work \u00a0in the day, or sup some beers in friendly surroundings at night.<\/p>\n

There’s no cover charge if you want to hang out in the upstairs bar in the evening, but you usualy have to pay a small charge on the door to check out the bands\u00a0downstairs.<\/p>\n

\"Cake<\/p>\n

Remaining bits of the display from the now-departed record store in the back (see below for archive photos).<\/p>\n

\"Cake<\/p>\n

We’ve\u00a0always\u00a0enjoyed\u00a0the food and coffee here, but have to say that the last time we visited it was a bit rubbish – the wi-fi wasn’t working, the coffee bordered on undrinkable, the food was a bit ‘meh’ and the place looked a mess with chairs all piled up at the back.<\/p>\n

I hope that’s just because it was\u00a0on Thanksgiving Day when most of NYC closes\u00a0down – the Cake Shop has long been one my favourite LES cafe so it would be a shame if it’s really gone downhill.<\/p>\n

Have you been there recently? Please drop me a line and tell me it’s back to being as lovely as usual!<\/p>\n

Archive views from November 2006<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here’s how the cafe looked at the end of 2006, when there was a full record store at the back.<\/p>\n

\"Cake<\/p>\n

A door by the end of the counter leads downstairs into a\u00a0delightfully\u00a0scruffy venue below which can get very hot’n’sweaty – like all good rock’n’roll venues should!<\/p>\n

\"Cake<\/p>\n

Vegan whoopoe pies on the cafe\u00a0counter.<\/p>\n

\"Cake<\/p>\n

The Cake Shop record store in all its November 2006 glory.<\/p>\n

I used to spend hours in stores like this when I was a kid, and it’s a shame to see them all\u00a0disappearing for ever. Flicking through an iPod isn’t quite the same.<\/p>\n

\"Cake<\/p>\n

“Take a chance with your lives for once”.<\/p>\n

\"Cake<\/p>\n

\"Cake<\/p>\n

The fella that ran the record shop was a nice bloke.<\/p>\n

\"Cake<\/p>\n

\"Cake<\/p>\n

A last look at the Cake Shop.\u00a0Hopefully, we’ll be back there soon!<\/p>\n

Discuss the Cake Shop on our boards<\/a><\/p>\n

Extra!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Henry Rollins visits the Cake Shop and – to be honest – makes a bit of an arse of himself.<\/p>\n

<\/param><\/param><\/param><\/object><\/p>\n

Despite what he says, the record shop was most definitely not stuffed full of “very hip” and “elitist” music. You can clearly see a Monochrome Set album in shot there FFS (I used to play for them and, trust me, I’m not elitist!)!<\/p>\n

He comes over as a total div charging into a store with a film crew and slagging everyone off while trying to look good in front of his lady companion.<\/p>\n

Not good, Henry. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Situated on New York’s almost-completely gentrified Lower East Side at 152 Ludlow Street is the Cake Shop, a small cafe\/music venue where we’ve spent many hours, scoffing bagels, surfing the … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6873,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[56,17,193],"tags":[102,374,1199,271],"class_list":["post-3048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-york","category-photos","category-places","tag-cafe","tag-cake-shop","tag-new-york","tag-record-stores"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/cake-shop-ludlow-new-york-05.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQI7P-Na","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3048"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3048\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3057,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3048\/revisions\/3057"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}