Overview
By Chris Lukic
This simple Russian cafe boasts inexpensive but luxurious food and dispenses carafes of flavored vodka that go down perhaps too easy.
History
Pictured as French, came out Russian
When Aleksei Panin opened Anyway Cafe in 1995, he pictured a French bistro with live music every night1. What East Second Street got was a basement Russian restaurant with house-infused vodkas and free live background music for diners, so the music part came true2.
We said its carafes of flavored vodka went down perhaps too easy. In 2012 co-owner Aksana said its flaming absinthes kept the bar well lit on any given evening1. In May 2018 The New Yorker's Bar Tab column paid a visit2.
Closed by the COVID-19 crisis, it started a crowdfunding campaign in May 2020 to make it through2. In February 2023, in the middle of negotiating a new lease, it announced that Monday, February 27, would be its official last night as Anyway Cafe2. That snowy Monday ended 28 years at 34 East Second Street2. Three of its former employees formed a new corporation and hoped to open another venture, there or somewhere else, but not under the Anyway Cafe name2.
In August 2023 Salter House, a shop of sustainable housewares and clothing, opened an outpost at the address3.
Sources
Researched October 2026.