Breaking News: Big Changes at APO


BY VICTOR FIORILLO

I’ve been wondering for the longest time what was going to become of APO (née the legally complicated “Apothecary”), the 13th Street haven of insanely good, expertly and obsessively prepared craft cocktails. The room is just too big to make it work. When you get even ten people downstairs ordering the elaborate drinks, it can take a verrrry long time to serve your customers, and suddenly you are in a battle of quality control versus customer satisfaction.

The answer, they’ve decided, is to turn the large downstairs room and bar into — get ready for this — a diner. “It’s basically a diner, yes, but one with an extensive variety of alcohol,” explains beverage manager Preston Eckman. But, he promises, the venerable cocktails won’t leave, they’ll just move to the relatively tiny upstairs bar. “Don’t think that we’re getting rid of APO,” says Eckman. “It will still be here. Just a flight up.”

So omelets and what will probably be the best Bloody Marys in the city downstairs and the Booty Collins on the second floor? Works for me.