Jimmys No. 43

If you’re old enough to remember the hit show “Happy Days,” you probably remember the Fonz’s catchphrase: AAAAAAAYYYYY! Well, we have a big thumbs up here at the restaurant, having received an A-grade from the health department just in time for spring and our new seasonal menu. If you haven’t been by in awhile, now is the perfect time to try out our market menu, which will feature new items in April, including biscuits!

The biscuits are inspired in part by our growing spirits program and a new monthly food and spirits tasting that will feature whisky expert Lew Bryson pairing bourbons with pulled pork biscuits sourced from Flying Pigs Farm and Brooklyn Biscuit Company. It’s all part of Jimmy’s Spirit Council where we bring in renowned authors and other spirits experts to do guided tastings with locally sourced food pairings. On April 4th, you can join us for a guided tasting offering up Yankee hospitality southern style!

Special guest Lew Bryson will be signing his book (Tasting Whisky) and  sampling some great blends from NY State distilleries. Lew told us about the chance to try local spirits: “While the traditional bourbon makers of Kentucky still make great stuff, and make most of the bourbon we see, the monopoly is over. Bourbon is being made all over the country, there’s no secret to it. But no matter where it’s made, bourbon just loves to cuddle up to some great pulled pork!”

To join in next Tuesday’s (4/4) tasting and find out more info, check out our event listing.

And if you are looking for even more spiritual awakenings this summer, then our intimate (limited to 20 people, tickets here) Spring of Gin botanicals tasting with Brad Japhe on Wednesday, April 26th, should be on your “must do” list.

For foodies, we’ll have a new pop-up kitchen with Yana Gilbuena on April 6th and 7th, with a NY Slow Food Slow Grains Day on Sunday, April 9th. (All events here.) Plus we’ll be adding to our farmer’s market menu with new meat (lasagna) and vegetarian (mushroom tacos, shishito peppers) as the first of the spring’s bounty arrives.

And of course our month wouldn’t be complete without some great beer events including a West Coast Beer Pioneers night on April 27th and our annual April Sours tasting event on April 29th.

Spring has sprung! We’ll see you at Jimmy’s No. 43.

While winter may be grasping at the heels of spring, the latter is coming (we promise), and with it will be many stalwart friends of Jimmy’s No. 43. We have a great chance to catch up with beer pioneers, future beer judges, our favorite photographer, some great authors who write books on artisan spirits, plus some non-profit friends and new pop-up kitchens. So much to see, learn, imbibe and enjoy!

First up (and we’ll have one less hour to wait for it, as DST starts this weekend) is the return of our good friend Jeff Cioletti, who will be leading an Irish Whiskey tasting next Tuesday, March 14th, in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day. Jeff will be pouring his favorite whiskeys to pair with a traditional corned beef & cabbage buffet-style dinner. You can still get tickets here. The event is part of Jimmy’s Spirit Council, a series of monthly tastings where we support spirits and foods and the people who talk and write about them (in April, it will be Lew Bryson and bourbons).

The Spirit Council isn’t the only new addition to spring’s drinking “must dos”: We’ll be featuring West Coast Pioneers throughout the coming months, harkening back to craft beer’s early days. Next up in the WCP series is a Stone Brewing night on Wednesday, March 22nd. Come by (Enjoy By?) and drink some great west coast IPAs; we’ll have several of Stone’s best on draft and by the bottle.

On Tuesday, March 21st, we’re welcoming back photographer Ann V. Reilly , whose curation of beer label art has been part of our “Wall of Foam” series the past few years. She’ll have new photos mounted and you can see them yourself and meet Ann as part of a Beer Label Art Party. See the art. Drink the beers. Pay as you go.

We’re also going to be featuring more pop-up kitchen take-overs this month, including a fabulous ticketed dinner with Ben Conniff of Luke’s Lobster on Thursday, March 16th. Or if brunch is more your style, be sure to join us on Sunday, March 19th, as we welcome back Chefs Consortium for a laid-back buffet brunch (more info/tickets here).

And speaking of welcoming back… It’s time to quack quack as Slow Food NYC brings its annual Duck Cook-Off to the restaurant on Sunday, March 26th. You can support a great cause (food education) and get your duck face all at the same time!

Also back at Jimmy’s No. 43? The NYC Homebrewers Guild with their annual Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) classes in the Backroom. Be sure to say hello to them if they’re hanging around the bar on Tuesday nights.

We are family… family of Jimmy’s No. 43!

Looking back over the past 12 years (!!) from our home in the Brewmuda Triangle on East 7th Street, Jimmy’s No. 43 has been part of the larger NYC craft beer scene for more than a decade. We’re very excited to once again be the unofficial “clubhouse” for NYC Beer Week, which kicks off for us this Friday, February 24th, with the annual SimulTap, featuring a local beer made from local ingredients (we’ll be tapping a keg of “Something Ugly this SMASH comes,” a collaboration IPL from KelSo and Greenpoint Harbor featuring a State Malt and State Hop – aka SMASH beer – at 5PM).

Jimmy’s No. 43 has always prided itself on our support of local and artisan brewers around the world (want to know more about the beers that inspired us over the years? check out this article in Brooklyn Magazine), and we still feature many new brewers on our 12 rotating taps and even more beers by the bottle. Drop by and try the newest from IcoNYC (Queens, we have their High Ryse on tap right now), Industrial Arts, Threes and Other Half (among others).

Or maybe whisky is your preference! We have added a robust menu of hand-crafted spirits, which you can drink neat, on the rocks or in one of our signature cocktails – many of these brands are from the emerging distilling scene here in NYC. We also have one of the city’s best selections of cider and several NY State wines.

We’re also serving up a seasonal market menu, featuring both meat and vegetarian options, including our lasagne made with pork from Flying Pigs Farm, one of the sustainable farms we have supported over the years. And speaking of food and showing the love… we’ve nurtured quite a few impressive chefs over the past dozen years, including one of our first chefs, Philip Kirschen-Clark, whose inventive work in our kitchen was profiled many moons ago in this Grub Street article.

We always try to be inventive without being gimmicky, whether it was the city’s first sour beer week (we’ll be bringing back April Sours on Saturday, April 29th) or our annual Battle of the Belgians (which we are bringing to NYC Beer Week with an all-Trappist version – get tickets here).

So as we greet another NYC Beer Week (see our full list of events here), we’re proud of our rich craft beer heritage and how we’ve tried to be a part of the larger East Village community we call home. Hope to see you at the bar… you’re part of Jimmy’s beer family!