BLOCK-OFF! 7th Ave [btwn Garfield & Carroll] vs. 7th Ave [btwn Berkeley & Lincoln]

After abandoning 7th Ave in last week’s Block-Off!, I’ve decided to, in honor of the less commercial of this week’s two holidays, bring two of Park Slope’s more presidential-named blocks to the virtual debate podium for this week’s non-Dan Rather moderated Block-Off!

That means that this week, I’ll be highlighting blocks with streets that share names with two of our assassinated, lasagna-loving presidents, as 7th Ave from Garfield to Carroll bumps heads with 7th Ave from Berkeley to Lincoln. Only after both blocks have begged & pleaded & flip-flopped for my vote like good little presidential blocks should, will a winner be crowned. Let the pomp-filled & un-circumstantial, bi-partisan judging begin!

7th Avenue from Garfield Pl to Carroll St:
Starting on the corner of 7th Ave and Garfield, we have Prudential Real Estate, the first of five realty-related businesses on this block. That means that approximately 18% of the businesses on this block are related to real estate…and that if the businesses were sentient beings, they could form the starting lineup of a basketball team.

Since realtors love Chinese food, there’s Szechuan Delight next door. It’s been there for a while, so they must be doing something right. I mean, it’s Chinese food. That’s not hard, right? And it’s a sit-down Chinese place without a bike in the corner, so that’s a rare delight.

D’Vine Taste, after a fairly-recent expansion, occupies a large space after the Szechuan Delight. They have an enormous selection of international gourmet foods there, which means you can get your olive oils & spices & figs all at the same time & place.

Next to it is Back To The Land, which offers up natural foods for the hood. I prefer my foods to be laced with preservatives & manufactured in a lab, so it’s not really my cup of tea. Also it’s a bit pricey.

After that is Elementi Restaurant, which serves “Artisan Pizza” and “Pan-Italian Cuisine.” I haven’t eaten in here yet, but it sounds yummy & if Pan-Italian means what I think it means, I’ve always wanted to try Man-Goat a la Penne.

Realty-related businesses #2 & #3 on this block—Aguayo & Huebener Realty & Trachtman & Bach Mortgage Brokers—are after Elementi. They both have ampersands in their names & I love ampersands, so there’s that.

At the end of this side of the block is the Key Food Supermarket. Since moving to New York at the beginning of the decade, I’ve been absolutely shocked at the lack of supermarket quality in this city. Sure, over the years, we’ve added Whole Foods and improved Pathmarks and endured overpriced Gristedes, but still...

On Sunday, the “Wafels & Dinges” truck was parked out front of Key Food, serving Belgian waffles, so bonus points for that, but it seems like the Wafels & Dinges truck is not long for this world.

Palma Chemists is the first of the twenty businesses on the right-hand side of the block and is one of those friendly neighborhood pharmacies that has been around for quite some time now. Still, since they’re “chemists” & I’m obsessed with Breaking Bad and am currently going through off-season withdrawals, I can’t help but have wild fantasies of the owners cooking the perfect crystal meth down in the basement & going on wacky, bald adventures.

Next to the chemists is Elan Salon & Day Spa, which has been around for more than 20 years. I like their logo, especially the screwed up, elongated “E” in it. It’s soooooo artsy Pink Panther.

The 4th realty-related business on this block, Coldwell Banker Hunt Kennedy & Garfield, is after Elan. They’re currently celebrating their 15th anniversary & if I had access to $1-2 million dollars, I’d totally buy one or two of their listings.

The next business is a GameStop. There are so many GameStops in a 50 mile radius around New York City that when you use the “store locator” function on their website, it just gives up after 50 stores. I guess this makes GameStop the Starbucks of video game stores? Oh! I saw a commercial on TV the other day for Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and The Damned! It looks violently fun and it comes out next week! I bet that’s really big for GameStop. Teens love grenades & pipe bombs!

There’s a Jack Rabbit Sporting Goods store next to the GameStop. A video game store next to a sporting goods store? Isn’t that some sort of violation of some sort of presidential fitness initiative?

If you’ve bought some Jack Rabbit sporting goods & have actually used them & got them all sweaty, you can bring them next door to Carroll Cleaners, who will not judge you by the stank of your shorts. Everyone else will though.

Northland Car Service is a new car service that’s opened up on 7th Ave above Carroll Cleaners, so if you’re sick of Arecibo et al, maybe you should give this place a thought. I bet you dimes to dollars that you end up cursing their souls at least once by years’ end anyhow. It’s a Brooklyn car service after all (ed note: I HAVE, in fact, used Norhland several times now and I'm happy to report that they rock. They show up quickly and their cars are clean, so I'm throwin a major thumbs up their way).

As crazy as it may seem given the city’s implied “a bodega for every Brooklynite” policy, the next business, Daniel’s Food Market, is the only bodega on this block & in this competition. They get to run the block’s energy drink and fresh fruit & vegetable purchases competition-free. That must be nice.

Upstairs from Daniel’s is Nails Park Slope. As a non-nail doing male, I’m not sure how to distinguish between nail salons, so I’ll leave you with this…they have a purple awning. Grimace was purple & he has great nails.

I should probably get on with the whole “having a kid thing” pretty soon & once I get that rolling, I’ll probably need to get the kid some toys or something. Hopefully, by that point, I’ll have a solid enough income or will have secured a sugar mama so I can buy the kid toys made with less melamine and more of the sort of wood-based educational fun you can only get at neighborhood toy stores like Little Things Toy Store.

I guess the kid will also need someplace to keep those toys & sleep & avoid inclement weather. Scott H. Gallant Real Estate is upstairs from Little Things, meaning that they have as good of a chance as any of the other seventy-million realtors on this block of fulfilling my & my future kid’s collective shelter needs.

I will take the neighborhood book store next door, Community Bookstore & Café, over a Barnes & Noble any day of the year. It’s alright in my book. That’s a play on words right there. The book is metaphorical! Ooh! Maybe my kid will know how to read too and I can bring him and/or her here.

Next to it is the best named wine store on the planet—Shawn Wines & Spirits [pictured above]. My ratio of bottles of wine bought here to jokes about me owning the place is currently at 1:700.

Color & Cut is a salon next door to my wine store, located in the space above an EMPTY STOREFRONT. If I eventually go all Bonnie & Clyde, maybe I can stop here on the way out of town to change up my look, thereby avoiding John Q Law. I’ll dye my hair black & get a bowl cut…or, as the kids are calling it, the “Demetri Martin cut.”

After that is Joe's Pizza of Park Slope, a place that was “Joe’s Pizza of Bleecker St” at one point. I can only assume that the new name is the result of something involving lawyers and ceasing & desisting. Regardless of its signage history, I do appreciate the haphazard nature of the storefront, with one sign featuring the word “Bleecker” painted over with the words “Park Slope” and another sign utilizing a hand painted, inconsistent “Joe’s Pizza” font.

United Laundry, the laundromat next door, reminds me of the immortal words of Lincoln, “A laundromat divided against itself cannot stand.”

Next to United is Video Forum, a neighborhood video store. Does anybody still go to physical video stores? Ever? As a former Boston-area video store employee who enjoyed many great times working in video stores and both chatting with & hating customers, all I have to say is “Sorry little neighborhood video store.” It sucks. Maybe it’s about time to update the ol’ business model before you become like the EMPTY STOREFRONT next door to you?

After that empty storefront is Spring Thyme, a massage & acupuncture therapist with three locations in the city, two of which are in Brooklyn. Full disclosure: I’m a bit petrified of acupuncture but am also intrigued by it & really really want to try it, but I’m not all that good with needles. Also, I feel like if it works & I get too comfortable with being able to have needles stuck into me, it’s a fast & slippery slope into Shannon Hoon-style H consumption. Nobody wants that.

Next door, Possibilities’ awning offers the promise of services for “accent, body, heart, soul” and “very good cards.” As I possess none of these qualities & am not in the market for cards, I haven’t stopped in here yet. It’s possible that I might though, if I ever meet someone with a soul and need to plan a party or an event for them.

There’s another Chase Bank at the end of this block…”More locations in New York blah blah blah.” I wonder if I was to use the phrase “less corn holing than Bank of America, but almost as huge” to describe them & if I put it on stickers all around the city or did some super-rad Banksy-type shizz with the phrase if they’d be able to use that as an excuse to close my account. I mean, not that I would ever do something like that.

Left-hand side:
Prudential Real Estate, 154 7th Ave, 718-840-2000
Szechuan Delight, 152 7th Ave, 718-788-5408
D’Vine Taste, 150 7th Ave, 718-369-9548
Back To The Land, 142 7th Ave, 718-768-5654
Elementi, 140 7th Ave, 718-788-8388
Aguayo & Huebener Realty, 138 7th Ave, 718-788-8200
Trachtman & Bach Mortgage Brokers, 138 7th Ave, 718-623-1400
Key Food, 130 7th Ave, 718-768-8317

Right-hand side:
Palma Chemists, 157 7th Ave, 718-638-9617
Elan Salon & Day Spa, 157 7th Ave, 718-789-1700
Coldwell Banker Hunt Kennedy & Garfield, 155 7th Ave, 718-622-7600
GameStop, 153 7th Ave, 718-398-5928
Jack Rabbit, 151 7th Ave, 718-636-9000
Carroll Cleaners, 149 7th Ave, 718-857-4141
Northland Car Service, 149 7th Ave (Upstairs), 718-797-7100
Daniel’s Food Market, 147 7th Ave, 718-622-0770
Nails Park Slope, 147 7th Ave (Upstairs), 718-789-5552
Little Things Toy Store, 145 7th Ave, 718-783-4733
Scott H. Gallant Real Estate, 145 7th Ave, 718-789-2332
Community Bookstore & Cafe, 143 7th Ave, 718-783-3075
Shawn, 141 7th Ave, 718-622-7947
Color & Cut, 139 7th Ave (Upstairs), 718-399-1127
EMPTY STOREFRONT, 139 7th Ave
Joe's Pizza of Park Slope, 137 7th Ave, 718-398-9198
United Laundry, 135 7th Ave, 718-399-0510
Video Forum, 131 7th Ave, 718-857-5707
EMPTY STOREFRONT, 131 7th Ave (Upstairs)
Spring Thyme, 131 7th Ave (Upstairs), 718-230-1838
Possibilities, 131 7th Ave, 718-399-6402
Chase Bank, 127 7th Ave

Scoring
Bonuses – One Business Bearing My Name, One Community Bookstore, One Toy Store, An Actual Supermarket
Shames – Enough Realtors to Form a Basketball Team, Two Empty Storefronts, One Evil Business, One F’d up Sign

7th Avenue from Berkeley Pl to Lincoln Pl:
This block starts with a realtor as well—Heights-Berkeley Realty. Compared to the Garfield-Carroll block, there are only three realty-related businesses on this block, but that’s still 21% of the businesses on this block, which is a slightly higher percentage.

After Heights-Berkeley Realty is the tasty, Cali-enough Mexican place, La Taqueria, whose “Tacos D-F” have my undying love forever. They’re these cuteass tiny little tacos and make a perfect pairing with a Negra Modelo or two or three at 4pm on a Tuesday. Sometimes, when I’m getting crazy, I even get them filled with pork.

Cousin John’s Café is next door to La Taqueria. The front area has a bunch of tasty pies and there’s a little area in the back to sit & eat. On the way to work today on the national holiday that is this Monday, I got a muffin with carrots & raisins & walnuts in it and I ate the whole thing, which is a good sign. The coffee was also acceptable.

Slope Sports is after Cousin John’s. It’s run by a couple who, combined, have probably run & biked more miles than you and your ten closest friends will in a lifetime. Also, the store just celebrated its fifth anniversary last month, which is cool.

Next to it is James DiPrima Realty, which is hidden underneath the stairs at 64 7th Ave. Based on my dealings with people under the stairs, as long as you keep them in cages, they’re fine.

Trade Winds Imports is next door to this and has a fancy enough name that might make me want to buy some of their somewhat-sleek furniture. It’s my hope that a portion of Obama’s stimulus plan is allocated toward couch purchases & therefore, I’ll be able to come back here soon with my fistfuls of economic recovery.

Santa Fe Grill, the last business on this side of the block, will never win over its competition on the other end of the block, La Taqueria. Ever. I know that one’s Southwestern and one is Mexican, but as far as food styles go, that’s close enough for me. In the interest of not writing off Santa Fe Grill completely, I will give them credit for staying in business for a long time—for somewhere in the twenty-year range. Clap.

The first business on the other side of the street, on the corner of Berkeley, is Mr Wonton. I read somewhere that it’s a “greasy shithole” beloved by “crackheads,” so I’m not going to waste any more space on it, lest I incur a Deathmatchesque wrath.

First Merchants Inc. is a mortgage brokerage located above Mr. Wonton. I wonder how they feel knowing that there are wonton-craving crackheads downstairs all the time, especially since wonton-craving crackheads don’t usually have mortgages to broker.

Next on the block is Oshima, which is the hands-down the best Japanese restaurant in this week’s competition. Pat on the back to them for that. It’s not really more than your average, modern-looking sushi joint though.

Dolly Lyla is a newish boutique business that’s built into the brownstone after Oshima. The sign always says that it’s OPEN and the bright red dress in the window is inviting, but I’ve never seen anyone in there ever. I can only assume the place is run by ghosts.

Frajean Salon is a basement-level business at the bottom of the same brownstone. One of these days I’m going to get some crazy facial crap done, but until then, I’ll take my back-alley Botox.

I really want to like Lemongrass Grill, which is next to Frajean. I really do. There was a point back in the day when if I wanted Thai food, I used to end up at a Lemongrass restaurant like 75% of the time. That point was years ago though, at a time when there weren’t ten thousand other Thai/Asian fusion places in the neighborhood that I’d rather go to instead.

The right-hand side of this block ends with Mandala Tibetan Store, which has all sorts of Buddhas & Ganeshes & warm winter hats. I’m not the organized religion type, but I could probably get down with Buddhism…and at the rate I’m going, I’ll have the belly for it by late April.

Left-hand side:
Heights-Berkeley Realty, 76 7th Ave, 718-399-2222
La Taqueria, 74 7th Ave, 718-398-4300
Cousin John's Cafe, 70 7th Ave, 718-622-7333
Slope Sports, 70 7th Ave, 718-230-4688
James DiPrima Realty, 64 7th Ave (Downstairs), 718-230-1700
Trade Winds Imports, 62 7th Ave, 718-636-1097
Santa Fe Grill, 60 7th Ave, 718-629-9253

Right-hand side:
Mr Wonton, 73 7th Ave, 718-398-7088
First Merchants Inc, 73 7th Ave (Upstairs), 718-230-3400
Oshima, 71 7th Ave, 718-783-1888
Dolly Lyla, 69 7th Ave
Frajean Salon, 69 7th Ave, 718-622-4448
Lemongrass Grill, 61A 7th Ave, 718-399-7100
Mandala Tibetan Store, 59 7th Ave, 718-789-0071

Scoring
Bonuses – 100% Local Businesses, One Badass Mexican Place, One Business Run By Ghosts, One Business Endorsed by Multiple Deities
Shames – 21% Realty-related Businesses, Mr Wonton, One Thai Place Past Its Prime

BEST DAMN SLOPE BLOCK ON THE BLOCK WINNER:
7TH AVENUE FROM GARFIELD PL TO CARROLL STREET

Read way more from Shawn at eatdrinksnack.blogspot.com.