BURGER WAIT Owner Jason Hennings said on Monday his Black Iron Burger Shop (540 E. 5th St., between Avenues A and B, 212-677-6067), originally slotted to open last April, will probably open tonight — but maybe not until tomorrow night. Phone calls to the restaurant yesterday went unanswered.

DRINKS-DOCTORS The world of New York cocktail aficionados is abuzz with the anticipated opening of Apothéke (9 Doyers St., between Pell Street and Bowery, 212-406-0400), scheduled to begin serving on September 5. Drinks at the bar, which is located in the heart of early-to-bed Chinatown, are manned by Albert Trummer who, with his brother Stefan, introduced New York to St. Germain, a currently popular elderflower liqueur. At the new spot, the idea is to offer drinks reminiscent of the concoctions of medieval apothecaries, and the cocktail list will be divided based on the its supposed ailments that liquors could cure (painkillers, stimulants, aphrodisiacs, etc). Austrian elderflower can be found in the bar’s Five Points cocktail, which also has Chinese herbs, Italian bitters, New York State grape juice, and Brazilian rum.

ELECTRIC RED Clo (10 Columbus Circle, 58th Street, 4th Fl., at Eighth Avenue, 212-823-9898), a 32-seat wine bar, has opened in the Time Warner Center. It is the brainchild of Andrew Bradbury, who at Aureole in Las Vegas developed an electronic wine list with hyperlinks to the Web sites of wineries and other places that could inform customers about what they were ordering. At Clo, customers use pre-paid or open-ended “smart cards” to dispense full- or half-glass tastings of about 100 different wines at the push of a button (prices range from $3 on up — currently the priciest half-glass is $83). Real live sommeliers are on hand, as well. Management hopes to start offering charcuterie platters in a week or two. Later on, it plans to open a shop selling “wine lifestyle items,” such as corkscrews, decanters, and glassware. A wine shop is also in the works.

NEIGHBORHOOD SWEETS Shorty’s.32 (199 Prince St., between MacDougal and Sullivan streets, 212-372-8275) is now making desserts in-house. Among chef Josh Eden’s new items are wild berries in chilled lemon verbena broth with sour cream and peach cobbler. He makes a warm chocolate cake, too, served with passion fruit sorbet. Each dessert is $8.

EAT, LISTEN, BE MERRY Guests can now both drink and listen to music at Lola (15 Watts St. at Thompson Street, 212-675-6700), which has been struggling for years to get both liquor and music licenses. Gospel brunch is available on Sundays, and a prix-fixe lunch during the rest of the week is $15.

BIRTHDAY TOAST Visitors to Cafe Luxembourg (200 W. 70th St. at Amsterdam Avenue, 212-873-7411) from this Saturday through September 9 get a free glass of Champagne in celebration of the French-American brasserie’s 25th anniversary, which is September 10.

Mr. Thorn is food editor of Nation’s Restaurant News. He maintains nrnfoodwriter.blogspot.com.