Life Cafe NINE83 on Flushing Avenue. — Photo by Diego Cupolo

When I was about five or six, I was in the habit of speaking to an abandoned house near my grandparents’ home in rural Texas, and I was convinced that the house spoke back. I’d pretty much forgotten about this until recently, when I further confirmed my psychic affinity with buildings by way of an accident involving Life Cafe NINE83, the popular bar and grill on Flushing. I would notice that every time I walked by the place, I would suddenly feel very irritated, even angry. “Fucking Life Cafe,” I would mutter aloud. “Fuck you, restaurant.”

 
Cheerfully drinking at Life’s ample bar. Click to enlarge.

Clearly, there was something wrong with this place, yet no one else seemed to realize it. You look through the window, and everyone inside is cheerful. The people leaving are mounting their bikes cheerfully, cheerfully departing to some cheery destination. “The fools!” I would think, or mutter aloud, or perhaps both. “Don’t they know?”

But I didn’t know myself, and was never able to pin down the terrible truth. There was nothing you could really point to and say, “This is what’s wrong with Life Cafe.” It was, after all, a neighborhood staple, and neighborhood staples don’t become neighborhood staples by accident. The menu was as admirable as menus get around these parts, offering a pretty solid array of things that a customer might want to eat at any given time, which is a pretty reasonable thing for a menu to offer. There is meatloaf served with garlic mashed potatoes and covered in mushroom gravy; there are fajitas of various sorts, made with chipotle-orange marinade; there are burgers, quesadillas, nachos, soups, salads, and sandwiches of every stripe and flavor. It’s a menu that would be described as “New American” or “Comfort Food” by most any restaurant critic in the country, fairly indistinguishable from menus you’ll find in any restaurant catering to creative class enclaves in Austin, Eugene, or Portland. And there’s something to be said for that.

The most visible drawback to Life is economic. In the midst of a recession, and at a point at which world food prices have declined back to their normal levels after a steep rise which provided for understandable increases in restaurant rates across the globe, Life Cafe is still selling burgers in Bushwick for $9.25. Clearly, some people are able and willing to buy such burgers, and my best wishes to them and to Life Cafe as well. But I’ve been to five-star hotels that don’t charge over nine bucks for a damned burger, and I can assure you, Gentle Reader, that Life is not offering anything in the burger department that warrants nine dollars in the midst of a global financial meltdown.

The world could, in fact, be existing in some utopian state of maximum economic efficiency with nearly unlimited capital and and full employment and underwater kelp farms and sub-orbital fusion reactors and a resurgence in online advertising rates to boot, and these burgers still wouldn’t warrant nine of your easily-earned dollars, even if they do come with fries, which they do. By comparison, the most consistently award-winning burgers in Dallas — those of Burger House — go for a little under three bucks. And these are sold in a neighborhood that is itself one of the highest concentrations of wealth in the United States. The astute Reader will observe that we, by comparison, do not live amidst one of the highest concentrations of wealth in the United States. And yet here are these nine dollar burgers (with fries, I admit again).

But I’m cheap, and also have this aforementioned psychic revulsion to the place and am perhaps being unfair as a result, so I decided to talk to a friend of mine who digs Life and ask him if he has any objections. To follow is a partial transcript of the worst interview ever conducted (and done via Gchat, to boot):

Me: I’m writing a review of Life Cafe for BushwickBK
and need your input
is there a particularly disappointing dish over there?
Misguided Guy Who Loves Life Cafe: hmmm – well… so far i really like everything i’ve had there – it’s reasonably priced
i would say the wait is the worst part of the experience and the cost of pitchers of beer
food delivery is sometimes late
but the food is really good – everything i’ve had i like

There are several things to note here. First, my friend actually writes out “hmmm.” Second, the points involving the wait and slow delivery are criticisms I’ve heard from other Life regulars and may thus probably be seen as consistent problems. Same with the price of pitchers — and despite the presence of two dollar Pabsts, other such things as Corona go for $5, which is really a bit much. But with regards to “the food” being “really good,” it must be noted that the fellow in question often eats tuna fish straight out of a can and is happy to do so. You’re really better off listening to me than him, even taking into account my prejudices.

EPILOGUE: LIFE AND DEATH

“Well, there you have it,” I thought to myself, finishing up the piece on Life Cafe. “The place is okay, and the food is alright, but it’s really a bit pricey, and it takes a little longer than it should. Basically, it’s overrated. That’s probably what was getting to me when I walked by there. I’m not psychic at all; I could just tell that it’s not good enough to be that popular. No big deal.”

But something compelled me to go back to Life Cafe’s website. “I should fact-check a bit, I guess. Surely they’re not charging five dollars for a Corona. I must be remembering it wrong.” But I didn’t click on the “Menu” button. I clicked on another button, taking me to a page that gave an account of Life Cafe’s history.

The first of Life’s two locations was founded by a couple who moved to the East Village back in the early ’80s, I learned. It was, in fact, an “East Village institution.” Furthermore, it actually served as the setting for a scene in Rent. “Well,” I thought, “that’s kind of irritating, but whatever.”

I read on. And then I came across this sentence:

“Street life on the Lower East Side was dangerous, rough and drug-ridden; it was about survival and the street had its own rules.”

They found me the next morning; I was on the floor next to my desk, my eyes rolled back into my head and foam dripping down the edges of my mouth. And every few seconds, they later told me, I was muttering the same thing, over and over again.

“The street had its own rules… zomg lol… the street had its own rules… zomg lol…”

And now I know why I hate Life Cafe.

Life Cafe
983 Flushing Avenue | 718-386-1133
Price range: $8-20
Mon-Fri 11am-apm, Sat-Sun 10am-4am
Delivery Available

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