Revel in New York
A look at the city through its people
Freeman's Restaurant
(At the end of Freeman's Alley)
New York, NY
212 420 0012
HOURS
Weekdays: 11am - 4pm / 6pm - 11:30pm
Saturday: 11am - 3:30 pm / 5pm - 11:30pm
In the fall of 2004, Taavo Somer and William Tigertt happened upon a perfect cozy space at the end of an unused alley off the Bowery. Freeman's Restaurant was born. The idea of the restaurant was to make a rugged, clandestine, colonial American tavern. The cuisine was also imagined to be early American: Simple, rustic, and inspired by Old World traditions.
From Frank Bruni of The New York Times:
In this restaurant-packed city, all sorts of clever business people have toyed with all kinds of locations, designs and cuisines to try to make a splash and a buck, and what do you know? A forlorn alley, a few walls of taxidermy and hot artichoke dip do the trick as well as anything else.
Behold Freemans, where the new Lower East Side, Appalachia, a British hunting lodge and a suburban 1950’s dinner party all converge. It’s the kind of unlikely restaurant you’d sooner expect to find in a David Lynch movie than in reality, but here it is, and here it’s been since the summer of 2004, at times pretending to shun attention as a cunning means of getting it.
Like the folks who market Pabst Blue Ribbon and Converse sneakers, the impresarios behind Freemans understood that the nexus of retro and downscale is a lucrative spot, so long as it’s packaged in the right, knowing way. And these men, William Tigertt and Taavo Somer, understood that a nook at the terminus of a tucked-away alley would be an equally lucrative location, given the way New Yorkers like to feel that they’re in on a secret.
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