So after the Arctic Monkeys show, I found myself outside of Roll n Roaster talking to some folks, which is right on the corner of 3rd Avenue and 11th. Then I found myself inside Roll n Roaster when my crew rolled into the joint to get some cheap snacks and beer. (A combo of a pizza, roast beef sandwich, and a pitcher of Bud all cost a total of 11 bucks!!!)
We snagged a table, and then weird crap started happening. I was with a couple of people from high school, and then all of a sudden Betty pointed outside the window behind me and was like, “Oh my god, didn’t we go to high school with that kid?”
It’s so weird when I see people from high school randomly in the city. I grew up about 45 minutes away from NYC, so it’s not totally unlikely that people who I went to grade school with would be in Manhattan, but it’s still funny to see folks you haven’t thought about in 6 years (am I showing my age?) walking around. My school was so large (graduating class had about 500 kids) that I didn’t really know everyone, so sometimes I’ll see people and not be entirely sure if I know them from school, or I’ve just decided he/she is someone who I *maybe* went to school with.
I turned around and saw some dude that looked sorta familiar. “Yeah, maybe. What’s his name? Brian or something?,” I inquired. We had a brief conversation trying to figure out what the kid’s name was, and then I decided to try to talk to him through the glass window. He wasn’t looking my way, so it was kinda a lost cause, but then he eventually did try saying something to us through the window but I couldn’t make it out. It was probably like, “Stop making the ‘loser’ sign at me on your forehead, you jerk!” Oh well.
Then later on I saw someone get punched in the face at Roll n Roaster. I’m not entirely sure what the deal was, but there were about 3 guys who came into the restaurant wanting to use the bathroom, but not buy anything. There’s a lock on the bathroom so they were trying to get the staff to open the door and they were like “it’s customers only.”
Well the one guy decided that he absolutely wanted to pee in Roll n Roaster’s bathroom but didn’t want to spring for the buck 40 soda, so instead he and his boys got into a multi-visit fight with the staff of R n R that lasted probably a total of 45 minutes. He started yelling at the staff and then they came out behind the counter and things started heating up.
The guy who had to pee started shouting, “I’m going to just get something from the car! I’m going to get something from the car!” and then his friend started yelling at him in some kind of Eastern European language. It got really quiet in R n R as everyone just sat at their tables sipping on beer and watching the real life drama unfold.
During one point of the scuffle, 3 girls who looked like they were coming from a Webster Hall dance night came into R n R and wanted to use the bathroom without paying. Someone quickly told them that they had to get out. At the climax of the argument, someone punched a guy in a white shirt and his nose started bleeding, then out of nowhere 4 bouncers flew into Roll n Roaster and threw all the guys out.
Later the guys came back and then there was a total of about 7 bouncers and police officers involved with kicking the guys out again. After it was all over, some kid from the Bronx yelled to one of the Roll n Roaster guys, “Hey man, I totally had your back! I was ready to throw down,” his mouth half-full with roastbeef sandwich.
I know this post probably seems really boring, but I love the fact that the guy who started the fight didn’t seem to have a problem yelling about wanting to go to the bathroom for almost an hour–something tells me he really didn’t have to go.
