Image: Bernie Hou. Sorry Reverend Billy, it’s only for three hours. For those of you who haven’t heard, all 7,100 “standalone” Starbucks in the United States will close for 180 tense, irritable minutes, starting at 5:30pm on February 26th. (That’s a Tuesday.) Now don’t let panic take over – this has nothing to do with Starbucks' "sinister Phase Two" of operations; it’s planned to facilitate the retraining of their 135,000-strong army. Come 8:30pm, this newly......

Forget about Missed Connections on the Craigslist, the only way to find love this Valentine's Day is by hailing Ahmed Ibrahim's cab. The Daily News reports on the cabbie with cupid tendencies, saying he's spent years playing matchmaker to his patrons. His record is pretty impressive, he's organized 70 "real dates," 19 of which turned into relationships that lasted over a year. The numbers could be higher but Ibrahim is selective on who he sets......

Will lightning strike twice for Mel Brooks, who hopes to enliven his stage adaptation of Young Frankenstein with the same spark that made The Producers a money making machine? His new monstrosity is already selling advance tickets for a Broadway run in October – a top ticket price of $450 sets a new record for excess – but last week Young Frankenstein came staggering out of the lab for an out-of-town rampage in Seattle. The......

We noticed a short NY Times review of documentary film that instantly intrigued us. The Cats of Mirikitani is about Jimmy Mirkitani, an elderly homeless Japanese-American man, who filmmaker Linda Hattendorf meets when he is drawing cats under the awning of a SoHo grocery. The two become friends and Hattendorf started shooting the documentary about him in 2001. Mirkitani was born in Sacramento in 1920, was raised in Hiroshima, and returned to the U.S.,......

This weekend, if you find yourself tired of partying and you just want to kick back, why not invite some friends over and watch Iron Chef America, where American chefs Bobby Flay, Wolfgang Puck, and Mario Batali go head-to-head with Iron Chefs Masaharu Morimoto and Hiroyuki Sakai? It's is wall-to-wall Iron Chef action, with episodes shown Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, which has the Tag Team Finale that, in finale tradition, has an unexpected twist.......

It seems that Alex Rodriguez has always wanted to come to New York: "What's it like in New York?" Rodriguez asked a reporter last season, a question that could have covered every issue from the chemistry in the Yankees' clubhouse to the niftiest place to devour a slice of pizza. Hey, A-Rod, Gothamist is here to help: Although we have yet to infiltrate the Yankees' clubhouse (that's on dock for our next fiscal year), for......