When the man swayed into Tosca Cafe with the distant yet determined expression of a bar-stool poet 50 years late for a drink with Jack Kerouac, I thought he had to be a ringer. When he listed past the gleaming, monumental espresso machine and produced a bottle of off-brand tequila from his jacket, I was sure of it.

Ken Friedman and April Bloomfield, the New York restaurateurs who converted this landmark dive bar into an Italian restaurant last year, had clearly put him on the payroll to keep up Tosca's reputation as a haven where unmoored eccentrics raise glasses with actors, go-go dancers, politicians, heavy-metal drummers, cops and Russian ballerinas.

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Source: http://www.nytimes.com