With Apologies To Ishkabibble’s, We Bring You… The Tequila Gremlin

Ishkabibble’s: Never a line and always a vibe.

BY JOEY SWEENEY | The sun is going down at the end of the world: The pandemic still rages through America, and on South Street, America is raging through America, leaving empty storefronts, litter, and arguments about masks in its wake. It’s enough to make you ask, “What is it all for?”

And of course you are thirsty; for the world, the song says, is a vampire. (Just go with me on this, I’m doing a thing here.) And you want something that is appropriately absurd for the times. But that also winds the clock both back and forward. But not the way South Street is doing it: South Street, it so pains us to say, is melding the blight of South Street’s past with the future of still even later capitalism. 

It’s not South Street’s fault. It is actually, literally, everyone else’s. But amidst this landscape, amongst the many that still stand strong — Alyan’s! Cohen’s! Famous! — it is one thing that calls out to you as Friday afternoon tumbles down and the wake has washed you up on the shore of the evening, wanting to drink... Van Halen. 

That which calls to you is Ishkabibble’s. Innovators of the chicken cheesesteak, possessors of the most classic tiny lunch counter scene in town, and who recently got referenced in a Westside Gunn/Black Thought track in such a defining way that it made you wonder: Is Ishkabibble’s one of the emotional scenes and settings for all of hip-hop?

Ishkabibble’s serves a thing called a Gremlin. A customer came up with it decades ago, and it stuck. It’s half lemonade, it’s half grape drink. The first time you taste it, it reminds you of the corner store candy of a lifetime ago: Smarties, Sweet Tarts. It comes in one of those cups that they now make sweatpants of, in the same pattern.

Here’s what you’re gonna do: You’re gonna get a Gremlin. And then you’re gonna put some booze in that Gremlin.

But which? You try vodka. It is undrinkable, though you feel sure that goths you once knew did it all the time. What else do you have? You have lemons, and tequila. It will have to do.

Turns out, it does! It’s like a margarita that’s into K-Pop. It’s a Fun Dip on ice. It’s a Tequila Gremlin, and South Street, wheezing hope for a brighter day, gave it to you because you live in the greatest city in America, and motherfuckers, this street persists.