Snowdonia and more in the QNYC Evening Edition for Wednesday October 24, 2012

Beer-infused food is coming to Astoria

Snowdonia, a “trappist-style gastropub” will hit Astoria in the near future, likely in the new year. The owner is pretty excited about this new venture, and has been researching craft beers to include at the restaurant. It would be cool if he brought in some fresh brews from SingleCut Brewsmiths and Rockaway Brewing Company, both of which are making tasty beer locally. We shall see, and when construction starts, we’ll let you know.

Bushwick has its own 5 Points, and it’s also full of beautiful street art

When we first heard about Bushwick Five Points, we immediately thought of 5 Pointz, the premiere center for aeresol art, right here in LIC (but it will be saying bye-bye in a year or so for a new development). Bushwick’s version has some amazing art in it as well and you can see it along the building walls on Scott Avenue, Troutman Street, and St. Nicholas Avenue near the 5 points itself (five streets come together at one point). Joseph Ficalora is the curator of Bushwick Five Points, and is a native to the area, having grown up in Bushwick, and boy-howdy has he seen a lot in his days. The art is pretty amazing and you should really check it out, just over the border from Ridgewood.

Vegetarians rejoice! You’ve got a friend in Richmond Hill

CitySpoonful wrote about a vegetarian restaurant in Richmond Hill called Veggie Castle. It has become popular as a “first-stop destination for reggae artists like Taurus Riley, Mr. Vegas and Luciano, as well as sports players like L.A. Laker Lamar Odum, who quench their appetite for vegetables, soy products and smoothies.” They offer all sorts of food in a steam table set up, and it has become quite a popular spot in the neighborhood. The restaurant is the progeny of Sybil’s, an excellent Guyanese restaurant and bakery in the area.

In Manhattan and Brooklyn, pedestrian plazas and bike lanes help bring in the $$

This morning we learned that those pedestrian plazas and bike lanes are helping the local economy. According to the WSJ, a study by the DOT, “shows that retail sales jumped 172 percent three years after the very first pedestrian plaza opened in Brooklyn’s Dumbo section.” And about the bike lanes, “three years after the project was completed, shops along the route of the protected bike lane on Ninth Avenue between 23rd and 31st streets saw a 49 percent increase in retail sales.” Not bad, not bad at all. We’d love to see a study done in Queens, especially when it comes to those pedestrian plazas, including the ped plaza in Corona and the plaza in Ridgewood, too.

NYC small businesses can compete for free fiber optics in the ConnectNYC Fiber Challenge

The New York City Economic Development Corporation has put together a competition for NYC-based businesses – small and medium-sized commercial and industrial businesses with 100 employees or less – to get fiber optics installed at their business for free. It’s called Connect!NYC Fiber Challenge and the deadline to enter is Tuesday, November 27, 2012. Tech startups really do have an edge here, since one of the criteria the judging panel is going to look at is just how badly a business needs high speed connectivity. And getting startups connected like this can only help the reputation NYC is working to develop as an important center for tech in the US, if not the world (LIC is well on its way toward that goal).