Here's Park Slope: Ayoub's Fornino Departure & O'Connor's Bar Expansion

Hey all, welcome back to the second installment of This Week in Park Slope, or whatever you feel like calling my weekly roundup of news from my blog, Here's Park Slope. Let's get to it.

On Monday, the nearly 40 year-old "working woman's" store City Casuals, on Seventh between Third and Fourth Streets, announced that they'll be shutting down this coming Monday, and there's a 50% off sale going on right now. Three cheers for owner Esther Levitt, who's heading into a much-deserved retirement. Fornino partner Chris Walsh also laid out the circumstances surrounding owner Michael Ayoub's departure, and revealed the details of some coming changes to the bar area.

Tuesday brought the week's biggest news, laying out some coming changes to one of the greatest dive bars in the world, O'Connor's, on Fifth between Bergen and Dean. Owner Mike Maher described the new back room, which will feature a kitchen, as well as a large upstairs room, featuring an outdoor beer garden. While the front room will remain largely intact (aside from the addition of taps for the beer), big changes are certainly a'comin.

Wednesday morning saw great local pub Harry Bolands, on Ninth Street just west of Fifth, shuttered by the city over nonpayment of taxes. They're still closed, so hopefully they can resolve their issues and get the hell back up and running, like Scalino did last weekend. Pearle Vision also bought out Infinity Optometry, on Seventh and Union, and installed their signage on Wednesday.

On Thursday, word got around that the un-named Swedish coffee shop on Fifth between Degraw and Sackett finally got a name along with a paint job, and had also opened up a second outpost on the Lower East Side. The name? Konditori, which I believe is Swedish for "an unappetizing name for a coffee shop."  A sign also went up confirming the sad fact that The Soup Bowl, home to Park Slope's very own Soup Nazi, Richard Gussoff (although he's nice, so we can call him The Soup G.I. Joe, or something), will be closing down for the season at the end of February, and Uncle Louie G will be moving back into the tiny space on Seventh just north of Ninth Street. Stock up now!

Last but certainly not least, today brought confirmation that the classic old rotary phone booth that's held down the back corner of O'Connor's for over 70 years will not be going anywhere when they renovate. Maher told me, in his thick Irish brogue, "It ain't goin' nowhere! If I lay a finger on it my wife will divorce me!" See, it pays to have a wife who's into old phone booths!

So that's all, folks. See you next week!