Lola

Embattled Soho restaurant Lola will just have to make do without live music, the State Liquor Authority informed the eatery's owners on Thursday.

Proprietors Tom and Gayle Patrick-Odeen have said that their business—which has been the subject of a nasty, three-and-a-half-year legal dispute with neighbors, who have protested the place's right to sell booze—is "struggling" without live performances.

The couple recently told The Villager that they were "hanging on by a thread."

Live music had been a staple of the drinking and dining experience at the couple's prior location on West 22nd Street. But upon moving to the corner of Watts and Thompson streets, the duo initially applied to play background music only.

The owners insist that this was a clerical error and that the application was later "orally amended" by the SLA.  read more »

Sean Sweeney isn’t planning on dining at Lola anytime soon.

“I don’t want spittle in my grits,” he said.

Indeed, Mr. Sweeney probably would be persona non grata at the controversial soul-food restaurant at 15 Watts Street in SoHo, which finally opened for business, much to his chagrin, nine weeks ago.

Mom-and-pop proprietors Tom Patrick-Odeen and Gayle Patrick-Odeen have told The Observer that their longtime neighborhood activist foe would be treated like any other customer—if, that is, he ever dared to tiptoe through the front door.

But, at this point, choking back spit would require some serious self-control.

After more than three years of costly legal bills and contentious hearings—at times intensified by racially charged rhetoric (“They tried to portray us as a hip-hop club,” Ms. Patrick-Odeen has claimed)—the bitter standoff continues.  read more »