Hi-Note Radio — Restaurant in New York

It was hard to see Rue-B go. They had such a weird, quirky, cool energy to them that I swore I'd never be on board with anyone else who took over that space. I saw Hi-Note open and it looked interesting enough, but I resisted going for months and months and months...

...and then on a random weekday after all my usual coffee spots were closed, I went in. And boy was I pleasantly surprised. The revived space is delightfully unique and feels like somewhere I'd wind up in Tokyo, the coffee is very good (in awesome glassware), and the staff (morning, anyway) is chill as can be. I could nitpick and wish the lighting were directed better and the tables had better shims, but my two times at Hi-Note in the morning while I sipped on cortados and listened to jazz and did work were pretty damn great. I plan on doing more and can guess from their back bar that their liquor situation is quite nice too (was that a bottle of Akashi I saw?) and would love to come by when child duties ease.

The bottom line: Neighborhoody, chill-cool vibes with great coffee. Totally worth your time and I can imagine if there's a morning surge in customers, they will ditch their pro-laptop policy to turn the space into a true coffee-and-chat space, which I think it...

We’ve visited before and enjoyed ourselves but yesterday was a bit rough. We were here yesterday, and the guy working behind the bar was pretty disrespectful. He seemed just really interested in having a conversation with his friends and most people sitting at the bar were visibly looking and feeling neglected. It was particularly frustrating because on a Sunday night it was not particularly crowded and after 20 minutes standing at the bar and mostly being ignored we felt frustrated and walked out. The other patrons next to us noticed we were getting a bit anxious and casually mentioned “it took a really long time for us to get a drink.” After almost twenty minutes be finally came up to us, took a drink order, then took drink orders from 4 other people at the bar, and then proceeded to manually shine wine glasses for about five minutes (no one ordered wine). At that point we just left in frustration, which didn’t seem to matter too much. The place is beautiful and cozy and the drinks selection is solid, but the service was very off-putting, which is surprising given that there’s a lot of competition...

I had a Mad Minute which has truffles and absinthe in it. Whoever created this drink should be hired by the CIA because I experienced a full life crisis while drinking this cocktail. First of all, why does it come with a small bowl of pecans, I don’t think I have ever eaten a handful of pecans in my life. Do you put the pecans in the drink? No other drink we ordered came with a small bowl of nuts. Next the drink tastes just like rye whisky but smells so overwhelmingly of truffles. My mind was in fits trying to figure out what was happening. After my first couple sips I started to hate the truffle smell and had to hold my breathe when taking a sip, but as the drink wore on, I started to solely be smelling the drink for the truffles. Once finished I was convinced it was the best cocktail I’ve ever had. As we were about to leave I finished my friends Negroni and realized my drink had no ice in it and was room temperature which snapped me out of the whole Stockholm syndrome...