Of Sweet Friendship, and Sweet Sweet New York
I wanted to write to you about Sweet Linda and tell you what an amazing bar it is. My bias[es] considered, of course.
As I went on to write, I somehow ended up wanting to tell you more about how much I love Aury, and the wonderful friend he has been to me over the past four years. I wanted to tell you how that is what every one of us who knows him will have to say about him.
Aury is an ecosystem builder, if there was ever anyone so perfect for the fact.
The story of Aury makes no sense unless I start from the very beginning.
I was a fresh, bright-eyed New Yorker going downtown for my first ever Pride parade on invitation from a new friend at work, and I was trying to find my way into the train station.
It was my first time taking a train in New York.
I had taken the buses before. I had always been scared to jump on the train, and this one day I said, I am not going to take the Uber. I am going to take the train.
The first hustle? Trying to find the entrance to the train station.
I remember turning around, spinning around with my phone in hand, trying to find the station using Google Maps, and I just could not find where it was.
Aury spotted me in the distance.
I was wearing white, as he would later remind me, and he said:
“You are very overdressed, and you look lost. Where are you going?”
And I said, “I’m going downtown, and I cannot find the entrance to the train station.”
So he was like, “I got you. Let’s go.”
He walked me into the train station, and we got on the train together.
The train went downtown. He told me he was supposed to get off at another stop, but the train got jammed, so we had to travel down a little bit farther together.
We exchanged contacts, and the rest is history.
Aury was my first true friend in New York City.
We met in June of 2022.
Through him, I learned what it was like to know New Yorkers, and also to redefine what friendship with men could look like.
We became really good friends. He introduced me to pretty much everybody I now know in New York outside of work.
He told me that he worked in nightlife, and that he would invite me to a few things. I told him that I was networking with a lot of people at work, but I had not yet seen the nightlife in New York City.
And he said, “I will invite you.”
So he started inviting me to evenings, events, and bars that he curated, where he had partnered with people.
Coming back to New York, then, to a bar that Aury owns was something I did not even know needed healing in me.
Walking onto 2nd Avenue and East 2nd Street, and seeing the words Sweet Linda was just so beautiful.
The space is as Aury as it could be: light-hearted, warm, and VERY sexy.
Overtaken by the menu, the first thing we spotted when I looked at it was the drink See You Tomorrow.
See You Tomorrow is this initiative that he has been building for a couple of years, and we were very excited to see it on the menu.
We walked towards the bar, and we asked for a table. Then we asked for Aury.
The team asked who we were, in respect for their manager, of course. I introduced myself, and we told them to let Aury know that Ntha and Heather were around.
He came out.
It was so good to see him.
He asked what we were allergic to, and what he could create for us.
I said, “Surprise me. I have yet to discover my allergies.”
Heather stated what her allergies were, and we were seated in the corner of Sweet Linda.
We had a beautiful evening talking about everything and nothing, reminiscing about how the past four years have gone by so fast, and just how happy we all are for Aury and everything that has happened for him.
My bias is considered: I had some of the best shrimp tacos I have ever had in my life.
The drinks were all amazing. Like, all of them amazing.
I knew I would not be able to sleep after that Espresso Martini, and I am here at 4 a.m., awake and writing, so clearly that worked.
We talked about Heather’s chess.
We talked about Aury’s muscles, which he has somehow has never worked a day in his life to acquire.
We talked about me wanting to write African in America.
And mostly, we talked about why I want to write it.
When I think about wanting to write fiction, as great and as interesting as it has been for me to live this life, I think the characters I have loved over the years are more important.
One of those central characters is Aury in New York.
And Vitantonio too, my doorman at Waterside Plaza.
I want the world to see a different kind of man from the ones we are so often shown. The kind of men I have been privileged to know.
I hope I can do justice to them by the pen.
I wish I could tell you the names of all the drinks I had last night. I am going to leave pictures because I cannot remember the names, mostly because I did not ask.
I will simply say that every single one of them was amazing. I will say that you can trust Aury to safely curate a beautiful night for you.
So when you are there, definitely feel free to show them a picture and ask for that thing.
And the shrimp tacos. Definitely ask for the shrimp tacos.
The food was amazing.
The salad we had came with such fresh avocados that I was genuinely impressed. The fries were amazing too.
Sweet Linda is the kind of place you go with friends you love when you need to catch up on a couple of years in New York.
And if you are ever, even just so briefly, in Manhattan, visit Sweet Linda.
Ask for Aury.
Make a friend out of that man and get to know one of the most wonderful human beings I have come to love.
He is such a community builder and systems creator.
Just a 10-out-of-10 human who has built a 10-out-of-10 space.
And I cannot wait to see and witness all that it becomes.
P.S.: 4 years a quasi-New Yorker, and I can still never find the entrance into a train station. He tried. Aury tried. To 4 more years. To 40. To a lifetime.
Read my Published Works
If you’d like to go deeper into my journey — from Malawi, through the United Nations and Microsoft into my recklessly beautiful now, you can find it in my books:
Decades Series [2 Books]
Lessons Series [7 Books]
Standalone Works
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About the Author
