2009

The Goat That Got Away

A FEW Sundays ago, between 2:53 and 2:56 a.m., a young man was seen loitering outside Cabrito, a Mexican bar and restaurant on Carmine Street in Greenwich Village.

Originally published in nytimes.com, March 20, 2009

A FEW Sundays ago, between 2:53 and 2:56 a.m., a young man was seen loitering outside Cabrito, a Mexican bar and restaurant on Carmine Street in Greenwich Village.

Security video showed the man walking, looking around and then climbing a railing. Soon after, a night watchman noticed that the restaurant’s signature sign, which had hung above the railing, was gone. Whether the man in the video took it is not clear — he disappears from the video frame after he climbs the railing — but someone surely did.

“It stuck out like a pink goat,” David Schuttenberg, the restaurant’s chef, said jokingly the other day. “It was begging to be stolen.”

Cabrito is Spanish for baby goat, and since the restaurant opened last May, its mascot, a life-size, bright pink plastic goat, had hung over the street.

Denson Jefferson, the restaurant manager, said the sign offered travelers a navigational aid. “Especially for people who don’t know New York that well,” he said, “you’d tell them to go until they see a pink goat. There aren’t too many floating around.”

The goat also had marketing value.

“Restaurants come and go so fast in this neighborhood, you don’t even pay attention to them,” said Rick Kelly, the owner of Carmine Street Guitars, a 20-year tenant on the block. “I saw the sign last year and thought, ‘What’s that, some ugly pig hanging up there?’ ”

Cabrito’s designer, Jori Jayne Emde, originally found the goat — which cost $500 and weighed 26 pounds — painted it pink with black hooves, stenciled on the Cabrito logo and had it hung up.

Goat meat is a staple at Cabrito; its signature dish is slow-roasted goat that is removed from the bone and served with a tequila-infused mixture known as salsa borracha, or drunken sauce. Cabrito’s goats come from upstate farms and weigh in at 120 pounds.

Mr. Jefferson said he was told by the police that there was little likelihood of solving the crime despite the video footage. But the restaurant posted fliers offering a reward for information in the “kid-napping,” so far to no avail.

“I don’t know what people do with these things,” Ms. Emde said. “I don’t know if they chuck it in a park and it’s just a pat on the back of ‘Ha, look what I did.’ ”

Cabrito at least can take comfort in not being the block’s only victim. At the Grey Dog’s Coffee, a neighboring shop, two sidewalk benches are secured by a chain; but some years back, the shop’s unchained rocking chair vanished.

“It’s a nicer neighborhood, I would think, of Manhattan,” Mr. Jefferson said. “But you can’t leave anything out anymore.”