“You don’t make up for your sins in church. You do it in the streets. You do it at home. All the rest is BS, and you know it.” That’s the doctrine along the Mean Streets of the Little Italy, Manhattan area circa 1973.

For us at Restaurant Fiction, we have a strict policy. We don’t make up for our sins in church, the streets, or at home. Instead, we do it inside Volpe’s Bar & Grill.

It’s that perfect place that wears its devilish and sinful red color scheme on its sleeve. The kind of place where if you want to dance with a stripper, play pool, see a shoot-out or someone shoot themselves up with heroin, you can.

Judge Restaurant Fiction if you must. We find our solace in places like this. It’s our duty. We’ve been doing so way before this area of Manhattan was hip and expensive. Well, before the Keith Haring and Basquiat era of the 80s. 

Early 1970s, lower Manhattan, all bars are dives. Garbage of all kinds covers the street and sidewalk. Only a neon sign lets you know that Volpe’s exists.

A viscous cigarette haze makes visibility nil. When your eyes adjust, the place fills up with 20-something Italian American brooding men with hot tempers trying to be somebody along with sailors, addicts, hustlers, grifters, and loose women.

What entices a person to frequent Volpe’s over and over again? The answer is quite simple. It’s their jukebox. Every consistent frequenter gets their song, the song that makes sure their presence is known at all times. The thing plays pop and blues tunes by the Rolling Stones and 1950s hits that don’t get much airtime like classics from Johnny Ace and The Shells. The jukebox has an omniscient power to play songs that fit your mental and physical state, even make fun of you, and remind you not to take life too seriously. They get under your skin, in your blood, and you know what?… That’s a good thing. It’s what keeps you coming back for seconds and thirds.

But if you have morals and a conscience, Volpe’s might not be for you. If you have been instilled to fear God and deep-seated religious guilt, Volpe’s isn’t for you either. But if you leave all of that at the door and tell it to take no more, then consider your Faustian pact made and, as a consequence, a smile on your face.