Q&A with Doug Anderson

But you have a concept going here. You brought the original Nick and Eddie owners in for “voodoo.”
Well there is, but I think it’s a non-verbal. We never talk about it. It’s just what feels right. It becomes intuitive. This feels this way, or this looks this way.

So when did you fly them in?
Yeah, he flew out and spent months with us when we were designing the place. He was involved in raising money, he was involved in being part of the face and showing that there was a relationship with the original Nick and Eddie. That it wasn’t just “it’s a great idea, let’s take it and run with it.” I mean, Phillip is very much a part of this restaurant. And Phillip calls it DNA.

When did you work at Nick and Edide?
It opened in ’86. I worked there two-and-a-half years. I was all of twenty-two. And then the neighborhood changed, and the music changed. Again, this is not a value judgment, but as soon as it became the Beastie Boys and 3rd Bass. I mean, I was a complete product of punk, and I never made that transition. The key of Nick and Eddie was that it was very young. I got too old.

What were the cross streets?
Swing and Sullivan. It was SoHo. But it wasn’t considered part of SoHo. It’s really an interesting little piece of New York. Because it really was Little Italy. Little Italy used to extend way over. But Heath . . . my friend from King Street, which was one street over from Sullivan. SoHo really sort of stopped at West Broadway or maybe another block west. And it was still like weird little stores, and unfortunately, it’s not that way anymore. But I think Nick and Eddie, it’s opening coincided—they’re not responsible—but it coincided with the expansion of SoHo three blocks west. It was a bit of an outpost when it opened.

When did it close?
’96.

When did the idea pop in your head?
Probably in ’96. I mean, it was a great place in New York. It wasn’t just the place. It wasn’t just the place. It was kind of like the best parts of New York were not—well, places like Area, of course, were interesting and fun to go to—but the greatest part of New York, which I think has vanished now, is that you could go to a bar or a restaurant and not pay a cover charge or not be examined before you go in, and every kind of person would be in the same room. Somebody like a Howard Howard, that old crazy tough vicious old drag queen next to an accountant from Levittown; next to that person would be, for instance, a Spalding Gray. You know, whatever. And nobody bothered each other, everybody left each other completely alone, and everybody was treated exactly the same. The cooler parts of New York were extraordinarily democratic. You could go to a nightclub and go through all the flashy shit like that. I had enough juice to get into those places, and I never had to wait in line to get into a place, but my favorite places were places like the Mars Bar. It’s still there; it’s on 2nd and 2nd. And you had all sorts of hustlers and junkies and art students and lower east side poor kids and lower east side rich kids. Ever body in one room, listening to music, and drinking and getting along and talking about all sorts of stuff. So it wasn’t just replicating Nick and Eddie. I think it was a spark that Nick and Eddie had.

You do realize that Minneapolis will never be as cool as New York was.
Sure it will. It depends on who you’re sitting with at any giving time. It’s like the Northwest passage—it shifts, and it changes, and it moves. If there’s one thing that I do think is interesting about the time we live in now, it’s that we have access to all sorts of things and all sorts of people at any given time. You don’t have to be locked to any single geography. I don’t feel like we’re on an outpost here. But you know, New York isn’t that cool place anymore. Look at the West Village. At one time, it was my favorite place to be. Obviously the big gay part of New York at the time with the winding streets and hidden little passageways. And I think it was a place not only for that community but all communities that wanted to live outside of the mainstream that saw an advantage in invisibility. And now all that moved to Chelsea, and everything is on the grid, and everything is absolutely visible, and you know what? It’s just not that interesting anymore. I’m not a fan of exclusivity, but I do believe that if you want to involve yourself in something, it takes some sacrifice, and it takes some work. It’s like music was—anybody could have it, but you had to do the work to find it. And now, look at foodies, you don’t have to do it anymore. You don’t have to have read about Fernand Point for five years before you ate something that may have some relationship to part of your consciousness or part of your research. It doesn’t happen anymore.