off the L: Zum Stammtisch

January 29th was James' big 25th (quarter life crisis!) birthday. When I asked him back in December what he wanted for his birthday, he said 1. sausage, 2.beer, and 3. friends. Simple, right? Well.... planning a surprise party with that theme turned out to be the opposite of simple, but here's the story of what became a very memorable night:

January 4th: I e-mailed everyone weeks in advance to make sure I could snag a precious Saturday for this party and get everyone onboard. I looked up and down the internet for the best German food in New York and happened upon Zum Stammtisch -- a very authentic beer hall in Queens. http://www.zumstammtisch.com/ (Czech it out! √)

The snag in this plan was that getting from Brooklyn to Queens is easiest done by swinging into Manhattan because the public transportation connecting the less glamorous boroughs is not great. However, swinging into Manhattan would have been ridiculous considering the restaurant was a mere 3 miles from James' house. There were complicated options involving multiple buss transfers or a train-to-bus combo, but I figured I deal with the transportation later when I knew how many of us were involved.

The plan was to surprise James at his place, head the the restaurant at 6:30 or so, and come back to his apartment for apple strudel and drinks.

Fast forward to the week of his party. I finally had a solid headcount, and it was looking like there'd be 16 of us. The restaurant would NOT take my reservation. Even when I offered to split us into two groups of 8, I was hung up on by the host. I looked at backup restaurants. They looked unimpressive. The next day I called ZS twice and got our group on the list for 8:30 under my name and under Maddy's. I used an obnoxious New York accent I'd been practicing when I called as Maddy. Maddy does not have an accent, but I thought it would help with the illusion.

Waiting patiently, that's why these friends are great.

I had originally thought of hiring cars to transport our group to and from Zum Stammtisch, and my parents generously offered to send fun money for that, but a group so large seemed daunting, cost-wise. I e-mailed everyone that we'd be pub-transiting.

Then -- THEN -- on Friday, the day before the party, James' roommate finally responded to my e-mail (from January 4th!) to say that his live-in girlfriend had to work at 5 a.m. the next day so we should probably move our after-party to a bar. I was so bummed out by this. I knew people wouldn't want to go spend more money at a bar after eating a relatively expensive dinner in Queens. But, within half a day, the roommates had worked a shift-switch that remedied the situation completely and my heart rate went back to normal.

Cousins from Orange, NJ!

On Saturday, I started getting text messages from friends who were asking if they could just meet us at the restaurant. Because the place was complicated to get to, this worried me. Plus, if everyone met us there -- what would happen to the great SURPRISE moment at his house??? Luckily, only four people ended up going that route, so the rest of us were gathered at James' by 6:30 to wait for him. (I had gotten in touch with his New Jersey cousin who was happy to distract James for the afternoon with a trip to the Guggenheim.)

James & Jamey

6:30 came and went. 7:00 came and went. No James. I tried calling James and then calling his cousin. No answer. Maybe they were stuck in train traffic? 7:30 rolled around. It was the time we were supposed to leave for the restaurant in case pub transit was slow. It always is slow.

FINALLY! At 7:40, James and his cousins walked in the front door. The surprise was anticlimactic because a lot of the balloons had already popped and we didn't have any sign that James was coming until he opened the door -- but I was relieved just to see the Guest of Honor show up! His cousins apologized for the delay. They weren't used to planning transit times and had left Manhattan at around 6:45.

The party ended up cramming into two last-minute vans (which worked out perfectly, actually) and we made it to the restaurant just in time. Alyse managed somehow to convince the restaurant to seat our group all together (what a life saver!) and although only half of our crew actually liked the German Food Experience, we all left full and passed a boot around like proper Deutsches.

On the way back to James', we opted for the bus-to-bus system. It only partially worked -- the first bus came, no problem. The next bus didn't show up and after 15 minutes, we decided to walk. That's when someone reminded us that Sam and her crutch and dislocated knee probably shouldn't walk the last mile to his apartment. We split the group in two, half of us hopping the M for two stops. But: as the M trains pulled into the station, two at once going in different directions, only half of us got on the right train. Ugh. Some of our crew stayed behind to do some recon on our lost kids, but the rest of us made it back to home base and put the apple strudel in the oven. The rest of the night was perfect, and everyone said that they had a blast despite the hazards!