Matchbook Traveler by Jeffrey Williams

On Martin Luther King weekend, I joined some friends for a Saturday afternoon matchbook hunt.  After lunch at Peter Lugar in Brooklyn, we went to Lafayette Street and Houston in Manhattan.  Heading north, we stopped at NoHo Star, which used to have matchbooks with its name.  We asked the hostess -- no matches.  We moved on.
Stopping at the Chinatown Brasserie, a very good wonton soup also brought a nice red matchbox with black lettering plus black match sticks with red match heads.  Arriving at Union Square, there was a beer at the Heartland Brewery and noodles at the the Republic.  A nice box at the first and a 30-strike book at the second.  From there, it was a beer at The Old Town Bar.  It has been around from the 1890s with beautiful metal ceilings.  It has a great matchbox with a picture of the bar on one side.  Our last successful stop was at Eleven Madison Park.  Drinks at this top-of-the-line restaurant rewarded us with a lipstick matchbox.  Not a bad day for a relatively short afternoon.