APT - SOUP/SAL - ENTREE - VEG/POT - DESSERT - BEV ... APT - SOUP/SAL - ENTREE - VEG/POT - DESSERT - BEV APT - SOUP/SAL - ENTREE - VEG/POT - DESSERT - BEV ... APT - SOUP/SAL - ENTREE - VEG/POT - DESSERT - BEV APT - SOUP/SAL - ENTREE - VEG/POT - DESSERT - BEV ... APT - SOUP/SAL - ENTREE - VEG/POT - DESSERT - BEV

Celebrating New York's working class creatives.

words by

Elizabeth Lawton

ILLUSTRATIONS BY

Mike Alonzo

20260826

Palate Cleansers

A Lemon Named Levy

The runt of the citrus shipment on running – and closing – a restaurant.

I would like to think I was chosen for a reason. When the bartender, Ethan, entered the walk-in through a cloud of steam on a sleepy Sunday morning, I viewed him as none other than a magician, a long-lost father, the one to finally hug and squeeze me through the juicer. I’ll always remember the feeling of his warm hands plucking me from the vegetable shelf. He smiled down at me, the size of a quarter in his pruney palm. I was the runt of the batch; this much is true. My ears remained alert, however, and when Ethan took the Sharpie from his apron pocket and drew two eyes and a smile on my warted skin, I finally saw clearly, as well.

I grew to yearn for the days Ethan worked. He would take me out of the low-boy beneath the worn wooden bar top and plop me into my designated ramekin between the Angostura, Peychaud’s and the cocktail napkins for the shift, where I would watch him sling two shiny metal cans over his shoulders with gusto and crack jokes with patrons.

One shift began differently from the others. The entire staff was called before the bar, and a man with layers of hair gel and a pressed suit introduced himself as the Chief Financial Officer of the restaurant.

“It is with a heavy heart that I announce Ransom will be closing for good this December,” he said. The shiny-hair-suit-man went on to explain something about “profit margins” and the “expense of operations,” whatever that meant.

“B.S.,” said one server. “It’s no secret the building quadrupled our rent.”

“I heard the company is expanding to Boston,” said Ethan. “Nice to know they’re fine with cutting corners here for their business elsewhere.”

Two things came in clear: we had a month left together, and I was going to make the most of it.

you've hit your free limit.

SUBSCRIBE FOR FULL ACCESS

The shifts following the news were tense. I learned about “86” after a guest threw a rocks glass with margarita backwash at a bartender’s head. One server walked out on his shift after claiming he saw another server pocket a $100 bill from an overserved guest. The thief denied it, but my own Sharpie eyes saw him slip the green Franklin into his jeans with the same stealth as when he swallowed shots of Casamigos from the bar when he thought no one was watching. I never liked him.

We had good times, too. One regular, nicknamed “Vesper” for his ability to down excessive amounts of vodka at 10 in the morning, struck up a friendship with Ethan. Every Sunday without fail, Vesper would appear with his Gucci aviators and Louis Vuitton cardholder in hand, sitting as close to Ethan’s well as possible. A few weeks before Ransom’s last night, he handed Ethan a bag full of psychedelic mushrooms and thanked him for his service. Each time a guest tipped Ethan a little extra or told him he made the best Old Fashioned they ever had (that was, in fact, his specialty), my sour heart sweetened ever so slightly.

On the last night of Ransom, we had a staff-only party. Like at the beginning of every previous night, Ethan seized me from the lowboy and propped me up on a barstool so I could watch the feasting, karaoke, and DJ set debauchery unfold. I had never seen everyone from the front and back of house in the same place before. I felt a sense of community that I had never experienced previously, even when surrounded by my fellow citrus kin in the walk-in. Like burying a dear friend, our secrets would lie with the restaurant after tonight.

After hours of drinking and games, “Closing Time,” by Semisonic blasted over the speakers, and I watched each server and bartender etch their name into the wood beneath the bar I called home with the garnish knife. When the song ended, everyone embraced one last time, then filtered out.

Ethan waltzed over to me with misty eyes, slurring his words and playing air guitar. I knew my end was near. He picked me up, kissed my forehead, and whispered, “All good things must come to an end,” before chucking me into the trash bin with less ceremony than I hoped for. Surrounded by darkness and chicken parm, I replayed his words in my mind over and over. The darkness and stench eventually consumed me, and all I had left were the memories of Ethan and his fellow bartenders twirling drunkenly on their last night, no – our last night belonging to the greatest barbecue restaurant FiDi had ever seen. ∎