Where I Asked Brad Pitt to Wait for a Table

TUCKED ON THE QUIET CORNER of Commerce and Barrow Streets in the West Village, across from two identical townhouses separated by a shared gated garden (fancifully rumored to have been built for warring twin sisters) and a few doors down from the Cherry Lane Theatre, was Grange Hall. I was hired as a waiter before it opened in 1992, which, at the time, was something of a surprise. Typically, restaurants had a stunning Black woman at the host stand, eye candy for the white male patrons, but Black men were mostly relegated to being busboys or barbacks, even in bohemian downtown. Luckily, one of Grange’s owners, Jacqui Smith, took a shine to me. Grange served comfort food in a Great Depression–speakeasy type setting—down to the portrait of FDR over the bar and the Berenice Abbott photography. (Abbott had lived in an apartment above the restaurant decades prior.) With its refurbished wood-and-leather booths, vintage wall sconces, and stunning bar, Grange had a warm glow of comfort and privacy without the pretense that usually goes with that. Those were the last days of indoor smoking at restaurants, and the walls had a cigarette patina. It immediately became popular: Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson, seemingly in a state of unease, liked to sit at one of the three bar booths, gazing contemplatively out the window; Rosie Perez preferred the dining room. Matthew Broderick had exquisite taste in wine and liked the booth nearest the kitchen door. He was always cordial, which I suppose one has to be when dining with one’s mother, which he often did. By 1994, I had stopped waiting tables and become the weekend