The vermin aren’t the customers.

Earlier this month, the NYC Health Department cited the recently opened Salvo’s (66-01 Forest Ave.) for “evidence of mice or live mice in establishment’s food or non-food areas,” all while maintaining an “establishment [that] is not free of harborage or conditions conducive to rodents.” Their health grade is currently pending (likely in anticipation of a follow-up inspection).

Salvo’s is a heartwarming inversion of the once-popular retreat to ghost kitchens that most businesses take these days. From the delivery app void, an actual storefront appeared. And from there, we received lauded sandwiches that might as well cost $47.¹ And if that’s a problem to you, just know that problem is strictly yours: the world doesn’t need you if you’re not forking up.

There’re more affordable options in Ridgewood, and they also have rodents. Aunt Ginny’s (6-52 Woodward Ave.) as of March 16th, had a “Grade Pending” sign clearly posted on their front left window. This is ostensibly in accordance with NYC health codes, which state that “the grade (or grade pending) card must be posted on a front window, door or outside wall” and “must be within five feet of the entrance and from four to six feet off the ground or floor.” 

But, that sign is over a year old, dating back to a February 2025 inspection that showed “evidence of mice or live mice in establishment’s food or non-food areas,” which was later resolved, as evident by a 2 score on that account (near perfect), though they still have a C rating that is not being visibly shown, itself a violation that they’ve been cited twice.

“Grade Pending” signs at Aunt Ginny (left) and Salvo’s (right).

A walk further south, through two of those spidery three-street intersections (Myrtle & Forest and Forest & Woodward), Bonus Room (9-91 Wyckoff Ave.) also presented “evidence of mice or live mice in establishment’s food or non-food areas” across all three of its health inspections between 2024, and in its most recent on this January. Their health code sign is accurate, but placed at about hip level and partially hidden by a smoker’s pole.

Neither Aunt Ginny’s nor I Like Food, their kitchen operator, nor Bonus Room, responded to requests for comment for this piece, possibly for fear of retaliation from the DOH, despite Mamdani’s efforts to ease regulatory burdens faced by small businesses. 

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” said one loyal Bonus Room patron. “I mean, it’s New York.” Ridgewood spots are capable of getting an A, though. Down Seneca Avenue, Mr. Nancy’s and Milo’s Yard both have A ratings as of this month.

“I assume every restaurant establishment has rats,” said one Ridgewood resident who both requested anonymity and mis-specied mice. Later, she told me, were she to own a car, she would regularly drive it drunk.

Drawing by Marshall Beau Wilcox

This is a part of a long-standing, essential trend sitting at the cultural intersection of restaurants, vermin, and guys with clipboards. Even the people’s patisserie, Bushwick Bakery (127 Central Ave.) received a mice citation on March 3rd before resolving those issues by March 6th.

All of it is a fucking tragedy. I’m a lifelong advocate for both vermin and the French (no correlation). I sing the songs of Aunt Ginny’s spice bag, Bushwick Bakery’s almond croissant, Bonus Room’s tater tots (which made an appearance in local fiction). I’ve never bought a $362² sandwich from Salvo’s, but this won’t stop me, and it shouldn’t stop you, either.

There’s no other animal more emblematic of NYC than the rat. Mice are their cousins, their heralds. This is news not because our restaurants are filthy, but because the rodent is under assault from the city that made them so swaggering. Any infested restaurant is only at fault for harboring rodents that were too stupid to hide.

The visibility of health codes, online or irl, in conjunction with their immateriality (if mice are so bad, how can Salvo’s still serve $1,278³ sandwiches?), are telling of our times: complete access to information that has no weight or impact.

When the authorities come again, we should stand up and say, “Mice? What mice?” I need pain au rat, need Bonus Room to drop a mice dropping-themed tater tot basket served with mole ranch. I need absolutely filthy food. Chipotle innovated in cleanliness, promised quality ingredients, then poisoned us anyway. Food culture’s mission to be as urbane and sanitized as a Gowanus newbuild is ridiculous. We live in a city of shit. If I wanted to pay usurious rents for a boring hellhole, I’d live in Hoboken!

It’s healthy to be grimy. Not long ago, I bought a jar of Biscoff butter. I went home and opened it up and saw the tamper-proof seal had been removed. I ate it anyway, and I made my roommate eat it, too! The people need to train our gut biomes to be as cultured and excellent as we are so we can live long, fruitful lives of going to work. Every restaurant across Bushwidgewood needs to revere their rodents, just as our delis patron pussy (the rodent’s mor(t)al enemy).

We yearn for grit, for authenticity, to come up from the mud. Why else would we go to Aunt Ginny’s or Bonus Room, two dive bars that aren’t even a decade old? (Correction: it must be noted that Bonus Room opened January 16, 2016, per a local site that I won’t name or backlink to, making it approximately 10.25 years old at the time of publication; additionally, Aunt Ginny’s opened June 3, 2016, per Eater, making it less than 10 years old). They’re Getty Images dive bars, simulations of the Dive Experience: wood panel words covered in bric-a-brac and seemingly old photos, though the simulation is usually shattered by playlists that cater to Death Grips requests (Ginny’s) or Checkered Slip-On Vans Americans (pop punk at Bonus).

We’re all looking for a bar like the one where Brokeback’s Ennis Del Mar explored the more boring parts of his sexuality. We want to live the lives of our cool uncles who smoked crank, but instead of crank we want to talk about gummies like they’re loaded acid blotters.

We want it to look like “somebody’s grandparent’s basement in midwest Wisconsin…or maybe Ohio,” the owner of Merv’s once told Grime Square. To sanitize this ideal is to ratify the usual critique of any new business: that they’re an idea out of place.

My local restaurant, a petri dish; my kitchen, a race-baiting Indian street food clip. The world is a nature reserve. Lick a Dyson hand dryer’s insides. Be a good environmentalist: champion all rodents.

---

Aaron Tomey is from Georgia, lived in St. Louis, and now lives in Brooklyn. His essays have appeared in Hobart, Bushwick Burner Phone, and Apocalypse Confidential. He can also be found on Twitter: @ecstatic_donut.

1. Editor note: currently, sandwiches at Salvo’s generally run between $18-$22, pre-tax and tip)
   ↩︎
2. ibid. ↩︎
3. listen… ↩︎