Punk Tapas

by Brian K. Mahoney and photographs by Amber S. Clark, April 28, 2008

Uptown Kingston is in a bit of a slump. Retail businesses have been especially hard hit, with vacant storefronts sprouting like so many daffodils. The bagel shop closed less than a month after it opened. Hickory BBQ, which took over a prosperous luncheonette from Jane’s Ice Cream, is gone. The billiard hall that never was is a glass mausoleum for two dozen pool tables. The city closed the Chinese restaurant with the 1950s “Chop Suey” sign for code violations. The parking garage at the corner of Wall and North Front Streets—always an eyesore, but a useful place to park—is ringed with a six-foot high chain-link fence and is being torn down.

Still, there are some encouraging signs that people haven’t lost faith in the possibility of Uptown Kingston entirely. One of them is the persistence of Elephant.

Elephant, which celebrated its one-year anniversary in late April, is the brainchild of Rich Reeve and his wife Maya Karrol, former owners of Brady’s Public House in Poughkeepsie. More recently the chef at 23 Broadway (late, lamented), Reeve has brought the passion for tapas he debuted there to his latest endeavor, giving it a decidedly punk edge.

First, don’t call it a restaurant. Elephant is a wine bar that serves modern European tapas, according to Reeve, who is emphatic on this point.

Second, don’t expect jazz. Reeve is emphatic on this point too. (Punk is a lifestyle, and nothing if not in your face. Take a look in the open kitchen at Reeve’s shaved head and tattoos.) The music, spun from a turntable behind the bar, leans loudly and heavily on punk and New Wave vinyl, though Edith Piaf or a side from the soundtrack of Jesus Christ Superstar can sometimes be heard. “If you’re going out for a quiet, romantic dinner, we’re probably not the place,” says Reeve.