Boy, do I know Shopsin’s. And New York Magazine says that West Village restaurant moving to  Carroll Gardens after 24 years in the Village. That’s what I call Big Brooklyn News. (Picture by nycnosh.)

Not suprisingly, the owner refused to be interviewed for the New York Magazine story and told the reporter: "Why don’t you make something fucking up. That’s what you’re going to do anyway."  I think that’s Kenny Shopsin’s  motto when it came to reporters.

That place is so idiosyncratic and famous there’s even documentary about it called "I Like Killing Flies."

Back in the 1980’s I worked in an  office on Morton Street. At first I didn’t know what to make of this restaurant on the corner of Morton and Bedford that was frequently closed and looked like a vintage luncheonette or grocery store.

But it wasn’t a luncheonette at all. First of all, if you tried to get your morning coffee there they’d look at you funny — they were only open doing prep work for lunch. You could sit and have a cup if you want. "But we don’t bag it or anything,"  Mrs. Shopsin said.

The place was run by a strange, somewhat gregarious, rolypoly man named Kenny Shopsin, who usually wore a grease-stained t-shirt and a white apron (also dirty), and his wife. The menu was many pages long and it featured something like 900 items and about 100 soups. How, I wondered, could they have so many soups (and entrees) every day? It was a mystery. It really was a vast menu and the food was really interesting running the gamut from American comfort, breakfast, dinery-lunchy, to dinner entrees of their own invention.

One thing I remember vividly. Instead of caps on the ketchup bottles, there were plastic dinosaur figurines plugged into the bottles.

Another thing, Kenny didn’t like tourists much. So, if he saw a bunch of tourists approaching the restaurant he’d run over to the door and say, "Sorry, we’re closed." as he put the Closed sign up.

I know the place had a lot of regulars and celebs. People you’d recognize, people you wouldn’t. It was really an institution down there on Morton Street – one of the great streets in the West Village. They moved to Bedford and Carmine Street. I never went – I couldn’t wrap my head around the new, more modern location.

Wonder where they’re moving to in Carroll Gardens? Anyone know? A Brooklyn Life – yoo hoo.

Also here are Ruth Reichl and Eric Asimov on Shopsin’s:

The menu is encyclopedic, the soups are spectacular and the welcome is eccentric. It’s been a Village hangout for years, and the owners, who would just as soon it stayed that way, are wary of strangers. – Ruth Reichl (4/98)

You’re not likely to find a stranger restaurant in New York than Shopsin’s, housed in an old general store. Kenny Shopsin, the chef and owner with his wife, are as likely to yell at you as look at you, especially if they don’t like your attitude. The food is as quirky as the owners, with many of Shopsin’s own pancake and soup inventions. Sometimes they are good, sometimes not so good, but portions are always huge. – Eric Asimov (4/98)
-The New York Times