The Vox Pop coffeehouse on Cortelyou Road celebrated it’s fifth birthday last Saturday, same day I was in Flatbush for the art studio open house. Too bad I wasn’t able to stay for it (studio tour ended at 4pm, birthday bash didn’t get underway until 8pm), but I did stop in that afternoon.

You see, I’ve been in there a couple of times before, and haven’t been all that excited by it. But it’s the kind of place its many fans rave about, and I wanted to give it another try. Who knows, maybe the stars were just lined up the wrong way when I’ve visited in the past. Besides – I know there were issues with a temporary closing and reopening under new management since I was there last. Time for another visit.

Final verdict: I like this place.

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I am really thrilled to see the Flatbush Artists Studio Tour – the 2nd annual – on the docket for this weekend. I saw their flyers last year for the inaugural event in June 2008, but by the time I had seen them, I had already made plans for that weekend. “Next year,” I figured… but when June 2009 came and went with no Flatbush art crawl, I had assumed the 1st annual event would be the last. Not so! They just moved it to a different weekend.

Suits me just as fine anyway. That first weekend in June has about 5,000 different studio open houses going on. I’m willing to bet Flatbush has the open-studio monopoly this weekend. (Update I: I was wrong, there is one in Greenpoint as well.)

Where: Looking over the map, looks like there will be 14 open studios spread over roughly three stops along the Q-line (Newkirk Avenue, Cortelyou Road, and Beverly Road).

When: This Saturday and Sunday, November 7 and 8, from 11am to 4pm.

BTW, FWIW, the weather forecast looks VERY promising. Awesome. Count me in!

Update II: Right after I hit publish, I checked out Only The Blog Knows Brooklyn, and read that Vox Pop – the counterculture coffeehouse that sits square in the middle of the studio tour’s footprint – will be celebrating its 5th anniversary this Saturday, starting at 8pm. I’ve been there a couple of times before, and I’ve been a bit underwhelmed, but I’ve been meaning to check it out again in its post-revival period (long story – I’ll get to it later). Saturday will probably be as good of a day as any.