The rain was coming down at 10:30 am on Saturday morning. The organizers of the annual picnic had decided to meet up at 105th Street and Central Park West to carry the 6 foot sub and other picnic supplies up to the Great Hill, where the picnic would take place. But the rain looked like it was here to stay so the time came to spring into action for the backup plan.

Calls were made to a few nearby bars. Do you have room for 20 to 30 people? Can we bring a 6 foot sub? No? OK – thanks, anyway.

One bar said ‘yes’ to the above questions: The Village Pourhouse on Amsterdam between 108th and 109th. It was the same place where we took last year’s picnic, after rain dampened those plans. It was like déjà vu all over again, except this time we skipped the part where everyone met first at the Great Hill.

An email blast went out to everyone who registered for the picnic, announcing the new location. The website was updated to note the change of locale. Facebook, twitter and LinkedIn updates followed. Saturday was a good day to be connected to AABANY via social media if you wanted to be up-to-date on our picnic fallback plan.

There were roughly a dozen of us there by noon time, the official start of the picnic. We made a pretty good dent in the 6 foot sub.

Thanks to everyone who made it to the Village Pourhouse. Sorry if anyone missed the updates and ended up at the Great Hill in Central Park. We left the bar at about 3 pm, just when the sun came out. Better luck next year!