Dear Friends,

It's hard to believe we celebrated our FIFTEENTH anniversary last year...

It seems like only yesterday I was waiting on tables at Windows on the World pouring Beaune Clos des Mouches for Jackie O, '64 DP Rose for Mick Jagger, '71 Bernkasteler Doktor und Graben Eiswein for Columbian drug dealers, and '28 Cos D'Estournel for John Wayne!

I'll tell you what I was NOT serving wine lovers back then, and it's a long laundry list:

Priorat, Gruner Veltliner, Rasteau, Baga, Aglianico, Albarino, Ribera del Duero, Chinon, Shiraz, Blaufrankisch, Furmint, Muscat, any grower Champagne, Arbois, Araujo, Bryant, Peter Michael, Cahors, Bergerac, Marcillac, Maury, Collioure, Bandol, Etna Rosso, NZ Sauvignon Blanc, & Zweigelt, to name more than a few! I'm happy to say we are still not offering any Squinzano, but we do have Zibbibo (under its more common name- Muscat)!! for those of you stickie-lovers out there!

That's right, I am not making this stuff up! Those were Heady times. Mucho fun. "Native New Yorker "was the #1 Hit on the lower end of the dial, Studio 54 and John Travolta pumps were all the rage. El Teddy's was just plain ole Teddy's, Tribeca Grill was a Martinson's Coffee plant, and Drew was still working the floor at La Reserve!

Night fever, night Feev-ahh! We knew how to use it!

The number of culinary & vinous pleasure-seekers has multiplied 100-fold since culinary luminaries like James Beard, Julia Child, Joe Baum, Craig Claiborne, Warner LeRoy, Pierre Franey, Betty Crocker & Aunt Jemima graced our sidewalks. Their imaginations were not remotely large enough to dream of what the food world celebrates today under the bright Shining Star Marquee lights of chefs like Emeril, Wolfgang, Daniel, Bobby, Mario, & JoJo! A FOOD Channel? We didn't even have Porn channels back then!

A lot has changed since then for sure . . . We've had a Subway Series! . . . and then again a lot hasn't! New York is still the most exciting city in the world with the most demanding clientele on the planet.

Though we've lost our beloved Towers and some of our innocence, our resiliency and our passion for living sustains us and actually makes us stronger than we were before.

It's amazing how far we've all come. We should all recognize that we are on the same path, striking degustatory mediocrity from our collective experience. Celebrate the senses for all they deliver to us! For they remind us that if we open our hearts to them, this world is truly a beautiful place to be.

And to be in it together, is even more salubrious a notion. Party on Wayne!

Michael Skurnik