Brooklyn’s newest hot comedy club is the back room at Kellogg’s Diner

By Scott Lynch

(Scott Lynch)

On Wednesday night, in the “champagne room” of Kellogg’s Diner, a full slate of Brooklyn comics stood before about 75 people wolfing down pancakes, mozzarella sticks, and chicken souvlaki platters, transforming the normally low key, nearly 100-year-old restaurant into a rowdy night on the town. (Spoiler alert: there’s no champagne in the champagne room.)

The occasion was Kareem Rahma and Johnny Gaffney‘s monthly show called Live Laugh Love LIVE!, a night of casually-curated comedy that the Brooklyn duo launched during the pandemic, taking over residential rooftops and friends’ backyards, and, after trying and failing to get a regular slot at one of the city’s more traditional comedic venues, have now planted its freak flag in Williamsburg’s iconic diner.

“A lot of times the comedy clubs said ‘sorry, our nights are reserved for regulars,'” Rahma tells Brooklyn Magazine of the evening’s venue. ”I used to write poetry here when I was a poet and needed 24-hour Wi-Fi, so this is where I used to come when I lived in Williamsburg. And I just love diners in the city, so it feels good we wound up here.”

Your hosts, Johnny Gaffney and Kareem Rahma (Scott Lynch)

Five comics did 10-minute sets at the back of the diner Wednesday, in front of an emergency exit door (a coincidence? Convenience?) Performers included Irene Morales, the deadpan Steve Girard, Connor McNutt (yes, that’s his real name, and apparently his parents almost named him Richard), and Usama Siddiquee, with Rahma and Gaffney acting as emcees.

Morales (Scott Lynch)

There was one late cancellation (Ena Den, who runs the popular Park_Slope_Arsonist accounts), so performance artist Matthew Silver leapt up to fill in. (He “entertained” folks by stripping down to a sparkling leotard and making fart noises.)

Silver (Scott Lynch)

For his part, Gaffney couldn’t be happier about the Kellogg’s arrangement. But it didn’t come without some resistance.

“It took a couple of tries to convince them,” he says. “Irene Siderakis is the matriarch, she’s the owner, and she has four boys and a dog and she runs the place. Her husband passed away [in 2018] and she’s a single mom, so she’s here but she’s not here. Like tonight, it’s her son’s prom. But eventually we got Irene’s blessing. It’s been a very hard couple of years, so she kind of opened up. She appreciates us, we appreciate her.”

Live Laugh Love LIVE! is an evening of disorganized chaos. Rahma and Gaffney accurately describe it as “unhinged.” After a “reading of the specials” prayer, server Sandra Dee worked the entire room throughout the show, stepping on punchlines with shouts of “who gets the tuna melt??”

Heads were bowed for the reading of the specials (Scott Lynch)

Seating was grab-what-you-can, with more people crammed into these booths, and more food piled on the tables, than you might think was physically possible.

And once everyone started sucking down Kellogg’s signature drink, the Henny Colada, the laughs tended to get louder, along with plenty of back-and-forth between the talent and the audience.

Henny Coladas going down smooth (Scott Lynch)

It was all what one might expect from an underground-ish show by young local comics—part of an emerging DIY aspect of the scene. What one may not have expected was the “protest.” The schmendricks behind the Old Jewish Men Instagram account interrupted the show with shouting and the hurling of a roll of toilet paper—a bit of staged outrage over Rahma’s starring turn in “Out of Order,” a short film he wrote, directed by Nicholas Heller (also known as New York Nico), about trying to find a public bathroom in the city.

The Old Jewish Men kvetched (Scott Lynch)

Proceeds from each Live Laugh Love LIVE! show go to a different non-profit organization, and this month the beneficiary was the Chelsea-based Art Start, which, says their website, “uses the creative process to nurture the voices, hearts, and minds of historically marginalized youth.”

The next Live Laugh Love LIVE! will probably be on June 15, says Rahma, but follow him and/or Gaffney for the official announcement. Note that each show has been selling out more quickly than the last, so get on it.