When Beauty Bar decided to have a family and headed over to Park Slope there was a sense of emptiness. In its place opened Broomies, which I personally loved for its weekly trivia night. When that closed I lamented loudly over where I would get to play trivia, but after a month of being closed something amazing opened in its place, Skytown Cafe…. (Photography by Peter Dressel)
Three weeks ago, Skytown opened its pretty little doors to the public. Its owners – Jeff Pan, Sabra Saperstein, and Ian Cronin – are all New York City residents who at one point lived in the Bushwick-Bed-Stuy area along Broadway avenue. Ian and Sabra started Skytown by hosting “family dinners” for their friends every Sunday and then migrated to having a booth at the Brooklyn Flea and the Williamsburg Smorgusborg. They met Jeff and began to collaborate on opening a restaurant. Fortunately, six months ago Jeff bought the old Beauty Bar space and opened Broomies. A few months later, with the assistance of friends in the interior design business, they closed what was then Broomies and began building the space for dimes.
The cafe is lined with iron light boxes that remind me of the constellations and the wood accents in the restaurant gives it a warm feeling. The food is fresh. All ingredients are from local farms, and the talented chefs also make the jams and several other ingredients in-house. The sign on the front of the door says “Best Egg Sandwich in Brooklyn” and, boy, was it one of the best egg sandwiches in Brooklyn with arugula, goat cheese, and tomato on a roll. The olive oil granola with yogurt had seasonal fruits, a perfect healthy meal. The Skytown bowl is a medley of grains (in this case rice), the vegetable of the week (green cauliflower), beans, avocado, kale, red cabbage and cheese cooked together. It reminded me a bit of a bibimbap without the egg and the crunchy part.
The cocktails are cheap, only $6 for a Manhattan. The best cocktail I had was the Hug and a Kiss, made with Blue Moon, pineapple juice, and Aperol. The combination made it taste like orange soda. When I go back to Skytown I will be getting that more often. Unfortunately, the Bloody Mary could have been a bit spicier and/or boozier. I’m a Bloody Mary kind of a gal, sorry Skytown.
