Goodbye, K-Dog.

After five years, from the days of the Lincoln Road construction through the revival of Lincoln Road, today is K-Dog and Dunebuggy's last day.

With the closing of the store comes the story of the final, contentious rent negotations courtesy of an interview Gabby gave to L Magazine. The key news from the interview was that the landlord sought a rent increase of 17% plus an additional $800 per month towards the landlord's real estate taxes. I'm going to stand with Gabby on this one and say that the demand was unreasonable, particularly in light of Gabby's willingness to rent this space five years ago when Lincoln Road was a construction zone and the store was two doors down from an abandoned disaster of a building.

I didn't go to KDog as much as maybe I could have but I'll tell you the things that I remember fondly: a shockingly good Cubano, toys in the back for our son to play with and a comfortable place to sit when I joined the laptop hobo brigade as I looked for a job last winter.

KDog had a reputation in some quarters for being bougie, and I suppose (for the neighborhood, anyway) it was. You know what, though? Not having a bougie coffee shop is worse than having one. I don't know what is coming next but I do know what we're losing.

Goodbye, K-Dog. And good luck Gabby, with whatever you choose to do next.

Feral Racoonturday?

Walking to our car from the Farmer's Market, on Flatbush Avenue alongside Prospect Park, Sid and I spotted this baby racoon wandering around.

Actually, not so much wandering around as following us. Sadly, we couldn't keep it. I kept trying to coax it back into the park but to no avail. I'm actually worried for the little guy since it may wander into traffic or something and it appears to have been separated from its pack. (Are racoons pack animals? For the sake of this post lets say... yes.) He (she?) didn't look great. Kind of skinny, making a sound that was a lot like meowing for help and limping a little.

Two NYPD officers saw me dealing with the racoon and asked me about it and, after I pulled away, they turned on their lights and made a U-turn to get to the racoon.

I'm going to hope that means that there will be a happy ending.

K-Dog's final hour?

A few weeks ago, rumors started flying that K-Dog's landlord had jacked their rent and that the cafe was headed to close. I've been largely in denial about the matter -- how can K-Dog close?!? -- but am sadded to report that the situation indeed looks bad. We received this note from Gabrielle, co-owner of K-Dog and Dunebuggy, yesterday:

So, by now you’ve heard the rumors, well I’m sorry to say that they’re true. After a year of unsuccessful negotiations with our landlord and five and a half years of serving (and loving) this wonderful community we have decided to close our doors for good.  Saturday, September 24th will be our last day. There is still hope, however, of an 11th hour reprieve. Billy, one of our oldest employees, neighborhood denizen and all around savvy guy, is interested in taking over and is trying to negotiate a new lease... People keep asking me what they can do to help and this is it, we need to hear from you guys. I’ve created an email account saveourcoffeeshop@gmail.com  please, in the next few days, send an email , that we will print and give to the landlord in aid of negotiations, explaining why PLG needs its coffee shop.

We'd love to see someone who gives a squat about the neighborhood inherit the spot but he odds are definitely stacked against them. According to a souce close to the matter, the landlord has already reserved K-Dog's spot for La Bagel Delight.

Still, we'd urge you to write letters on K-Dog's behalf. The same landlord also owns the space rented by Enduro, and we'd hate to see these exploitative rent increases -- in a neighborhood starved for eateries -- become the trend.

CORRECTION: The "Billy" mentioned above has no connection to The Blue Roost.