LIVE TO EAT: This commentary is a postscript to the Mirin New Albany closing.

Last Friday afternoon (August 9) the Courier-Journal eventually caught up with the Mirin New Albany closing story, which I'd already broken at Food & Dining Magazine. As of today (the 16th), the News and Tribune still hasn't noticed.

But dude, the newspaper is RIGHT ON TOP of what happens within a three-block radius of the newspaper's Jeffersonville digs.

Mirin's location in Louisville remains vibrant, and owner/chef Griffin Paulin was open and up front with the C-J as to the issues he experienced in New Albany.

'Something had to give': Mirin restaurant closes in New Albany after 6 months, by Dahlia Ghabour

 ... What ended up giving, he said, was six months of losing money incrementally — and then losing $5,000 in one day when the restaurant lost power on Aug. 7 and lost all of its food.

Paulin said he didn't blame the New Albany community. He thinks the concept could have worked if he could have held out longer. But multiple closures due to weather damage, a long-pending liquor license and inconsistent traffic added up, and the calculated risk he took fell flat.

As we've discussed numerous times in this space, money almost always is the issue -- whenever someone says it isn't about the money, the opposite is true -- but the precise monetary details invariably are subject to a matrix of numerous reasons, most often connected, although at times truly random.

The heavy metal commentator Eddie Trunk is fond of saying that somewhere around 95% of music-related disputes are about money, and this percentage probably reflects reality in the food and drink sector.

Not enough money = not much of a future.

At the same time, each of these cases is entirely unique. It’s all about location -- except when it isn’t. Prices were too high, or not high enough. Bad service and noisy ambiance, too-hard barstools, unclean bathrooms, filthy smoking areas, awful on-line ratings; the list goes on and on, with enough variables to prompt doctoral dissertations.

I don't know Griffin, who is a colorful figure in a vocation heavily populated with them. I respect him tremendously, just like anyone else who chooses to enter the food and drink business. The pressures and stressors are many, and the rewards often alarmingly few.

Speaking personally, Griffin's social media announcement last week about Mirin New Albany's closing triggered me in an unexpected way, especially his comments about the gut-wrenching task of discharging employees.

Of course, I experienced the same emotional intensity when we closed the kitchen at NABC's Bank Street Brewhouse in 2014. Doing this killed a piece of me, and it's still dead.

There were aspects of social media commentary following the Mirin New Albany closing announcement that strike me as important, but before I document them, allow me to repeat Griffin's words in the C-J, because he clearly gets it.

"Paulin said he didn't blame the New Albany community."

Interestingly, several Mirin fans quite clearly did blame the community. 

By contrast, residents of New Albany (and Southern Indiana) had a completely different view of the situation.

Admittedly I bristled a bit at those negative comments obviously coming from Louisville residents. I'm a fierce critic of New Albany's shortcomings, and I'll maintain that's my prerogative given residency; we may fight like cats and dogs here in town, but don't talk smack about us from similarly dysfunctional burgs located elsewhere.

Besides, the scene is markedly different downtown compared with the recent past -- or else Griffin wouldn't have chanced an outpost of Mirin here in the first place. As far as I'm concerned, it's one metro area even if a state line happens to pass through the middle of it.

I might cock an eyebrow at New Albany residents not knowing about Mirin's presence downtown, and yet (a) it was only six months, and (b) in a car-centric community where walking is still regarded as suspicious to the point of communism, Mirin New Albany was hurt by the lack of a prominent outdoor sign.

Would the advent of the Reisz Mahal have helped pull Mirin New Albany through the doldrums? Maybe, except I'm having trouble imagining the aesthetic assassins who populate Gahan's regime finding comfort in sophisticated Asian noodles. Gahan's more the Bud Light and White Castle ramen sort, and his minions shamelessly pander to his stunted tastes in an effort to avoid 2:00 a.m. phone calls.

Finally, if you're saying to yourself, "nothing works out in that space," then consider how many tenants preceded Adrienne's in their space on Market Street.

Best wishes to Griffin Paulin and his Louisville culinary team. I appreciate your efforts, and I'm sorry it didn't work out here in New Albany. I know what it feels like when the lights go out.

Here's a final thought:

Mirin's second location in New Albany has closed, according to its owner.

Mirin New Albany, the second location of Griffin Paulin's eatery in Louisville, has closed. The story broke at Food & Dining Magazine.

Paulin revealed the closure in a Facebook post this morning and says there'll be an official announcement at some juncture. Pending this, I don't seek to belabor the point because personally, I know all too well how he's feeling right about now. Indies almost always are undercapitalized and over-stressed. It's a murderous business, y'all.

Let's leave it there for now.

LIVE TO EAT: The advent of La Catrina, Mirin and The Earl proves that investments in food and drink downtown are not abating.

It may seem as if there is no connection between The Onion's all-time classic "War Declared by All" and the restaurant/bar scene in downtown New Albany, but look closely at the arrows on the above map.

This is how it seems.

Last summer, Longboard's and Pints&union opened. Dragon King's Daughter moved to a new space, and now La Catrina's will occupy DKD's former address. Double Barrel began where Match used to be, and next to it, Roadrunner occupied the square footage formerly used by Urban Bread.

Now Roadrunner will shift to a nearby address, and a second location of Mirin will take its place. Meanwhile, seemingly out of nowhere, Big Four Burgers ceased and Cox's Hot Chicken & Sports emerged. During all this, Floyd County Brewing Company expanded what amounts to an adjacent sister business, Grain Haus, by adding a wood-fired pizza oven.

No, I personally don't know anything more about River City Winery's operating issues than anyone else does. We need RCW back at full strength.

Finally  ... across the street from Pints&union, where Comfy Cow once held court, there'll be a new bar called The Earl ... and the Gospel Bird floor plan remains up for grabs by a fresh, new contestant.

Before offering a few links to explain at least some of these arrows, just this point: For many onlookers, changes in the food and dining scene connote instability, but while there'll always be an inherent fragility, there's also an ebb and flow to any healthy business segment. It's like an ecosystem.

The glass half full: Each night of the week, even Monday, there are hundreds more customers eating and drinking at downtown New Albany establishments than there were only a few years ago.

It's probably 95% more than it was in the barren wasteland time of 2003, when we bought our house on the 1100 block of Spring. For some current purveyors, it won't be enough. For others, it will. There's always more we can do to promote and project, although often, everyone's in the weeds.

Things will change ... and change is good.

Three links follow. 

La Catrina restaurant in New Albany to offer authentic Mexican street food, by Brooke McAfee (Tome May Content Multiplier)

NEW ALBANY — Chef Roza Segoviano found some of her favorite food from street vendors while spending a few years in Mexico. In early 2019, she will bring an authentic taste of that culinary scene to downtown New Albany.

La Catrina Mexican Kitchen, located at 202 Elm St., will present a grand opening on Jan. 4. The building was previously home to Dragon King's Daughter.

Griffin Paulin of Mirin previewed the New Albany location in a Facebook post, and then Insider Louisville analyzed these social media comments. Following is the text of Paulin's post.

It’s true, we are opening a 2nd Mirin in downtown New Albany. Here’s some info:

We are setting a goal of February 1st for an opening date. This is ambitious and may not happen. Please don’t hold us to this date. There is much to be done, but we have hit the ground running.

We will be taking over the space currently occupied by Roadrunner Kitchen, who I believe will continue operating through December. They aren’t closing- just moving. Check them out in the meantime- really cool people who do Good Shit™️. 145 E. Main Street, New Albany.

Executive Chef at the new location will be Jon Kaelin. Y’all know Jon’s pedigree. Dudes a tank and way talented. Stoked to have him, obviously.

My guy Levi Crandall will be working in conjunction with Jon as his front of house counterpart. He brings necessary experience that Mirin needs to continue to grow and evolve. He is a New Albany resident. And he’s quite handsome.

Michael and David will maintain a role at both restaurants, though the specifics of those roles are gonna be free flowing- we’ll figure it out, man. David is taking an immediate “promotion” to Sous Chef, but he was basically already the Sous Chef, so it’s kind of whatever. Michael will continue to be my go to guy for all Mirin related things.

Cody Graudick will be getting an expanded role at the Mirin in Louisville, so, like, ayyy, TONY!!!

The menu will be similar to Mirin Louisville, but different. We haven’t finalized it yet. Just scrawled some shit on the back of a Fire Greens invoice. But we’ve gone through enough menus at Mirin.... the actual food is honestly the last of our worries.

Oh, and I am HIRING SO HARD RIGHT NOW PLEASE HELP.

Thanks for reading and have a lovely day!

Little is yet known about The Earl. I'm told the owners are veterans of Doc Crow's and the short-lived (but wonderful) Red Herring, both in Louisville. At the moment, their ATC license is waiting in escrow, and interior work is underway.

Courtesy of Facebook, here's the logo.