Wing Tak Liquor

I looove this place. Always someone getting arrested outside in some fancy ass ride… I’m not even kidding. I’ve been here twice and both times it was like that.
Now, this is a rare ghetto liquor gem that will guaranteed vanish within the next few years given the gentrification swallowing up every square inch of Manhattan isle and fucking it in the ass.
PLEXI POWER.
I got a bottle of table wine and drank the whole thing by myself then blew some coke and cried last Friday night. I don’t know why I keep doing this to myself, but anyways — it’s gotta stop.
I like that I have to push my money through a hole to get my poison here. I like that the journey inside is literally a descent — foreshadowing! Metaphorical liquor store…
Dude (Wing?) was sleeping in a chair with his feet up when I got there, but I couldn’t see this detail. I just waited innocently clutching my last $ 20 trying to thwart the obsessive voices in my head: «Should I? Or shouldn’t I? Should I? OR Shouldn’t I? Aren’t you trying to be sober, Liza? How close does this bring you to your goals? Is it really gonna make you feel that different? And on and on… till the ‘reasonable’ voice slams down saying ‘ah what the hell’.»
What the hell indeed.
So I’m standing there with my $ 20, pretty determined to follow through on this innocent purchase that only I sillily make difficult and dramatic. Sillily… What a word, eh? I’d never say that word aloud — it’s so awkward.
So there were some glamorous bitches from London behind me dressed in fake leopard furs and chunky heels, and then some people who were not going to the same party came in behind them and that’s when one of the dudes yelled: «YO TAK!!!» And Tak (Wing?) got up from his sleepy chair so I could shove my last $ 20 at a $ 7.50 bottle of ‘table wine’ because, well… What the hell.

Exit Allen & Delancey. (no, not the restaurant… the street corner). Descend into the LIQUOR CAGE. This is the spot for all your pre-​bar needs, and everything here is sold from behind the protection of bulletproof plexiglass. Don’t even try to steal a bottle or pull anything stupid here. Everything’s on lockdown till you push your dollars through the little slot to the guy back there.
Price guide:
750ml, Johnny Walker Red: $ 23
1000ml, Svedka vodka: $ 16
750ml wines – depends, but South American and cheap Italian reds run about $ 7. You could also walk out of here with way more expensive bottles, but why would you? Go to Astor Place Wines, or a serious wine shop instead. This is a liquor store.