Picnic

Picnics're all pretty much the same: you pack up a basket with some wine and cheese and little sandwiches, then make out on a blanket as Yogi Bear perpetrates his agenda of ongoing larceny. For a 100% cartoon-bear-free diner experience that tries to approximate the good parts of all that, hit Picnic.

From two NYC service industry vets previously accustomed to opening glam hotels, Picnic serves all-day and almost-all-night diner food in a setting that's anything but greasy spoon: it's got an uncramped loft feel with spacious white leather booths, a 10-foot high-def projection screen housed in a wall of artificial turf, outdoor tablecloth-esque gingham print bar stools, and an illuminated onyx bar with country-ish accessories like jugs (for infused booze) and wooden spoons -- also a failed Ricky Schroder pilot where he was grindingly poor. Everything's served all 22 hours they're open, including breakfast fun like marinated skirt steak & eggs, pancakes topped with chocolate chips, strawberries, etc, challah French toast stuffed with peaches, apples, or bananas, and rustic sides like thick-cut applewood smoked bacon, corn beef hash, and Spam, which unlike other types, will deliver on its promise of making you bigger. For those loons who don't eat pancakes for dinner, there're sandwiches like the seafood salad w/ shredded crab meat and a lobster job on a hoagie, plus dinner stuff like Thanksgiving Day Plate w/ turkey breast, stuffing, baby corn on the cob, cranberry sauce, and a corn bread muffin, and a whole roasted Cornish hen w/ sauce options like BBQ and Cajun jerk -- which will totally con you into showing your rack, and then not even give you any beads!!!

Unlike your basket, Picnic's got a full bar with specialties like frozen daiquiris, mojitos, and sangrias with chunks of fruit floating in the ice -- be sure not to chew them too aggressively, or risk giving your teeth a Boo Boo.