four o'clock on a tuesday

4 p.m., Tuesday Jan 6, 2026

The best time to go to the bar schmuck is right at opening, at 4 p.m. on a Tuesday. There are a number of reasons for this.

One, there's less competition for a seat. Close to a year in, they are still consistently booked out. As they should be, don't get me wrong.

Two, building on that: the staff have more time to chat as they refresh your frozen martini glass with a new, equally frozen one.

And three, non-peak nights are more often when the cool industry folks are out and about. You might be seated next to someone who works at your favorite Italian restaurant or a brand ambassador for that coffee liqueur you really like.

On this particular Tuesday, I had wrapped up work early and needed a walk, so I crossed from Chelsea over to the East Village, specifically 6th Street and 1st Avenue. On a Friday night, there would’ve been a line down the block. On Tuesdays, you breeze right in after a quick hello to the bouncer.

Let me introduce the evening's cast of characters:

• Katie, seated to my left, who had finally worked up the courage to pursue a new role she was genuinely excited about.

• Frank, an ex from five years ago, who I just happened to be seated next to.

• Emily, who was considering moving from her dream city of London to the U.S. for a boyfriend who had recently moved to Manhattan.

Juliette hugged me as I sat down, and I thought, Is that Frank? He looks exactly like him—but he lives in Massachusetts. That would be odd.

After ordering a Schmuck martini from Mason, I turned to him and started, “If I’m wrong, I hope you take this in a flattering way, but—”

“You’re not wrong,” he said. “I was just texting my coworker that I can’t believe I’m running into you. The universe works in such funny ways.”

We caught up. He was…exactly where he’d been five years ago. I very much was not. Still, the run-in felt like it meant something—the kismet felt almost excessive.

He said he really really wanted to take me to dinner very soon but had to leave for a prior commitment. A couple hours later, I saw that commitment was a very expensive Michelin-star meal with another woman. So much for the run-in meaning anything more than convenience for him.

After he had left, Emily took his seat, and Katie, Emily, and I struck up a conversation. Emily was visiting for a couple weeks—her boyfriend had just moved to New York from London, where she still lived and worked in a tech job she loved. Although she said their long-term plan was to return there, he really wanted her to move to New York first, at least until he felt ready.

"So, this is not particularly rom-com-y advice on my part," I started, "but...be as selfish as you can be. Don't move here unless you have a long list of reasons to do so besides him. Listen to your own intuition and nothing else."

Katie was a little more encouraging, although the way she told her own story made me feel she wouldn't be considering upheaving her life for a man. She told us it took her a long time to leave a job she felt lukewarm about for a role that genuinely excited her.

I was better at giving Emily advice than taking it myself, initially, and found myself thinking about the events of the evening on the train ride home. I like for there to be deeper meaning in everything, so I really wanted the run-in with Frank to have significance, ideally of the romantic variety. But I don't think that was the point. He told me that now, at 28, I’d gotten old. What I understand is that I’d simply become less likely to fall for empty promises without proof.

And that's what happened at four p.m. on Tuesday at schmuck. Some nights are about romance.

Others are about intuition.

This one was the latter—and it came with a very good martini.