Little Rascal: An avant-garde neighborhood joint
It’s early evening in mid-March, and a sharp breeze comes off the river as darkness sifts down on Greenpoint. The industrial atmosphere of this low-slung, working-class neighborhood in late winter is belied by 130 Franklin Ave., where the color and light emanating beyond the storefront’s classic black trim and glass facade beckons neighbors in to eat, drink and be happy in inclusive sophistication at Little Rascal.
Little Rascal in Brooklyn is an offshoot of the eponymous original located in Manhattan’s Nolita neighborhood. The outpost, opened last summer, shares the vision of owner Halil Gündogdu, who opened the original location in 2012, his younger brother, Öner, who came on in 2015, and renowned mixologist Keith Larry, who is a partner in the Brooklyn enterprise.
Within that enchanting storefront is an establishment, in many ways, symbolized by its bar. Not the bar scene, necessarily, or the sophisticated cocktails to be procured there, either, but its serpentine shape which allows every patron to see the extent of the expanse. The intentional inclusiveness, and the conviviality it conjures, speaks to ethos that define the best neighborhood establishments.
And the appeal of Little Rascal begins at said bar where beyond the copper-topped surface, hauled down by the owners from Canada during the pandemic, is an array of radiant bottles, back-lit by white lights, below a vivid parade of diverse puppet characters.