I’ve visited a lot of public bathrooms in my day. The thing is, here in New York City there’s eight million people and just 1,103 publicly available restrooms, equating to 7,253 people per bathroom. I’m not exaggerating, either. Here’s a source and I even did the math. On New Year’s Day morning, no less. MATH! GAAAHHHH!
Where most of those 1,103 bathrooms are located I have no idea, as I can basically think of one per neighborhood. There are some I’ve used in Bryant Park, Madison Square Park, and I suppose the ones at Grand Central Terminal are considered “public,” but who knows.
Therefore, most of the time I’ve needed to use a crapper on the go it’s been in a Starbucks, since you can more easily sneak in and out without actually being a paying customer. Plus the coffee smell and loud steamer noises are beneficial on a couple of fronts, serving as an added bonus.
But what could Starbucks do to make the experience even better? Feature some awesome wall art like the incredible design seen above. It’s glorious, and serves as a stark reminder that not enough food, coffee, or booze joints go the extra mile by glamming up their restrooms.
I tried and failed in determining to which establishment this wall art belongs, even going as far as Page 2 of Google’s search results (gasp!).
But a far more interesting discovery in my pursuits was learning that there are myriad Big Lebowski-themed bars throughout the U.S. and around the world. Chicago has–or at least had–The Dude’s Abode, a pop up bar courtesy of The Rookery. There’s the Lebowski Bar in Reykjavik. The Lebowski Bar in Dresden. And also Lebowski’s in Edinburgh and Glasgow—or at least there was at some point, knowing how quickly bars come and go (with the pandemic only making this trend that much worse).
Regardless of their various names or locations, however, just know that if you visit, you better not play any fuckin’ Eagles on the jukebox, man.
