L to R: Federico Cutroni and Filippo Saccani, at the Chelsea location of Amorino (Eighth Ave., at 18th St.).
BY ROGER MILLER | Betting on the area’s reputation for good times and refined tastes, two recently opened businesses are bringing high-end gelato, classic arcade games, and craft beer — along with an intimate vibe — to a neighborhood where mom and pop shops are being replaced by chain stores selling mass-produced items.
Their origins are as different as Paris and Brooklyn — but the owners of Amorino and Barcade say they decided to establish a presence in the area for similar reasons: friendly character, diverse population and ideal location.
“We chose Chelsea in part because it is a vibrant neighborhood with a cosmopolitan crowd,” said Filippo Saccani, the CEO of Amorino’s U.S. operation. “They are people who like to travel, to go out, and who enjoy a certain quality of product and sophistication.”
Saccani hails from a small city in Italy, where he grew up working in his parents’ gelato shop. He came to New York to open one of his own — but when he tasted Amorino’s gelato, he reached out to the founders, who decided to put him in charge of expanding their product to the U.S. Up until the Chelsea store opened a month ago, the only Amorino you could find outside of Europe was on University Place, which opened in 2011.
“After getting the offer, I had to go back to Italy to ask my parents’ permission to move away,” said Cutroni with a slight Italian accent. “But they were very enthusiastic, so I moved to New York.”
Working together, Saccani and Federico found the location, raised the money and began construction. While most Amorino stores have a similar look and feel, the Chelsea location (at Eighth Ave. & 18th St.) has brick walls that the owners discovered during construction, and decided to keep.
Classic integrity is fine when it comes to preservation, but they draw the line at chemical preservatives. Every batch of Amorino gelato is made in Paris, France under the supervision of the company’s head chef. While the flavoring ingredients come from all over the world — vanilla from Madagascar and mango from India, for instance — the eggs, milk, water and sugar all come from the same region in France to ensure consistent quality around the world.
There are no avant-garde concoctions with names inspired by pop culture icons — just a wide assortment of smooth, naturally sourced classic flavors. That said, Amorino is not above trying out new ideas. The Chelsea location is one of the first to feature a section for macaroons — those colorful, light and fluffy cookies that the French are known so well for. As well, every so often, the owners and franchisees get together to discuss trying out new flavors. The most recent addition is called “Calamansi” — a sorbet made from a kind of small orange fruit from Asia that tastes like a combination of a lime and mandarin orange.
Before taking over the store, Cutroni said he had to train for three weeks at both the University Place and Chelsea stores, practicing how to scoop gelato into the perfect flowers that are the hallmark of Amorino.
“Federico became the master of the scooping,” said Saccani with a grin.
Preference for a certain shape influenced more than the iconic scoop shape. Besides its reputation for high foot traffic Cutroni and Saccani chose the corner of Eighth Ave. and 18th St. simply because, as they said, “We are crazy about corners.”
If all goes well, Saccani plans to open stores in San Francisco, Boston and Las Vegas this fall, and another in Chicago come December. So far, he’s very happy with the way business has been going in Chelsea. “It’s been growing,” said Saccani with a wide smile. “We’ve been seeing more people here every day.”
Barcade co-owner Paul Kermizian, behind the bar he helped build.
At the Chelsea location of Barcade (24th St., near Seventh Ave.) it’s all about games and the beer. It boasts more than 30 classic games, joysticks and all. And while the glowing fun machines lining the walls invoke the 1970s-era apex of arcade culture, the old dark stained wood bar and its wide selection of craft brews and spirits can easily give off the aesthetic of a prohibition-era speakeasy.
Barcade was founded in 2004 by New Jersey-born Paul Kermizian and his friends, Pete Langway and brothers Kevin and Scott Beard. At the time, Kermizian was living in a large Brooklyn loft, and had managed to get four, full-size arcade games inside. The idea for Barcade, recalls Kermizian, came from the parties he and his friends would throw where they would play games and drink good beer.
“My friends and I were thinking that we wanted something more than just a craft beer bar, so we looked at each other and said, ‘Let’s just put 35 games in a bar.’ ”
After designing and building the first location, mostly with their own money and muscle, the bar took off in popularity.
“We were in Williamsburg in 2004, before the neighborhood really took off,” said Kermizian. “So everything really grew up around us.”
Now, Kermizian is the CEO of a company that has been expanding. Philadelphia, Jersey City, and now Chelsea each have their own Barcade (next up: St. Marks Place).
Kermizian said he and his friends have had their eyes on Chelsea ever since the days of the Brooklyn original.
“We wanted a location in Manhattan from the start, but we didn’t want to be just another bar on the Lower East Side where there were already like a million bars,” said Kermizian. “Chelsea also just seemed like a friendly neighborhood.”
Kermizian and his friends helped design the interior, as well as construct the bar and a few of the tables. “We have a look,” he said, “but part of our thing is to take the existing character of the building and highlight that.”
Last January, Kermizian and his partners went to a community board meeting to make sure they were welcome, and found that most people were very supportive. “Being in a tech neighborhood is also a plus,” he said. “We draw a geeky crowd. Whether it’s the beer geeks, or the game geeks, they come.”
In terms of game selection, there are seven or eight classics that you’ll find anywhere — like Ms. Pacman, Tetris, Donkey Kong and Tapper (a beer-serving game that Kermizian counts as one of his favorites). There are also some more eclectic machines that, Kermizian bets, many gamers probably have never heard of, such as Discs of Tron (a 3D environment game) and Sega’s Time Traveler, a hologram game that came out in 1991 that Kermizian asserts is “super weird and hard to describe.”
All of these retro machines are also expensive to maintain, he said. “Even when they were new, they would break and swallow your quarters.” Regardless of the cost of repairs, Kermizian and his friends have kept the prices the same since the first Barcade opened: 25 cents a game. He also said there’s no target audience, despite the age of his games.
“A lot of the younger people only know games from their phones, so it can be hard for them at first to learn the joystick, but eventually they get used to it and enjoy it.”
Aside from the gamers and craft brew aficionados, though, Kermizian said the Chelsea location has begun to draw a loyal after-work crowd for happy hours, as well as a more local scene later on in the night. Even though the crowds are diverse, though, make no mistake — this bar is a haven for gamers. On one wall, a massive chalkboard displays every record set for each game, some by patrons who have actually spent an entire day, from opening to closing, playing a single game on a single quarter.
Barcade co-founder Paul Kermizian at the controls of Tapper, in which players must scramble between three bars to refill drinks.
Don’t be intimidated, though, said Kermizian. Most people just come to hang out, drink good beer and indulge in some nostalgia.
And that’s the final, sweet similarity between Amorino and Barcade. Both sell a product you can’t get many other places — whether it’s a scoop of classic gelato sandwiched between two melt-in-your-mouth macaroons or a stiff, refreshing glass of beer and an arcade game you haven’t played since you were a kid.
