Zipper Factory Tavern.(Restaurant review)(Brief article)

This screwy gastropub is a recent addendum to the Zipper Theatre, a playhouse occupying an old zipper factory on the desolate periphery of the garment district. You can get a drink to take in while you see the show--cabaret, burlesque trapeze, Margaret Cho. The tavern itself has two floors, three bars, and two rows of stage lights, and is cluttered with so much prop-shop bric-a-brac--bulls' horns, an antique iron, an album cover for "Music to Help You Stop Smoking"--that you may feel as if you are on the set of a play about an eccentric new restaurant in an old zipper factory.

In homage to the neighborhood, the tavern serves its own artisanal sausages and other charcuterie, along with homemade sauerkraut and mustard (and, in the same vein, some gummy potato pierogi). The meats aren't bad--it's hard to quibble with bratwurst or fatty slabs of bacon. But the Zipper happens to be across the street from the headquarters of M. & T. Pretzel, the city's hot-dog-cart kings, and one wonders whether it might be as gratifying, and less laborious, to grab a water dog from one of the returning venders. ...