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Food & Drink

By Gus Delaporte 5/17 11:00am

Food & Drink

Four Seasons Grill Room 2

The Four Seasons Restaurant Faces Rent Hike

The Four Seasons Restaurant, home of the “power lunch,” is facing a six-fold rent increase when its current lease expires in 2016, The Huffington Post reported yesterday. The iconic New York eatery, which currently pays $19.74 per square foot, could be looking at rents of $125 per square foot for its 29,476-square-foot space inside the Seagram Building at 375 Park Avenue.

Documents viewed by the Huff Post indicate that as part of the owners’ $782.8 million mortgage deal, financed jointly by Citigroup and Deutsche Bank and being marketed to investors via commercial mortgage backed securities, bankers expect management at the property to begin charging the The Four Seasons market rents, which according to the documents are determined to be $125 per square foot. Read More

By Billy Gray 5/15 7:45am

Food & Drink

cake

Upstart Four Winds Snags LES Buildings Housing Troubled Cake Shop Rock Club

Less than a year after mounting a successful online campaign to stay in business, the Lower East Side rock staple Cake Shop is under new ownership.

The young development and management firm Four Winds Real Estate late last month purchased for $19.1 million two multi-family buildings in prime LES territory: 152 Ludlow Street and 149-151 Essex Street. Cake Shop, which in addition to rock shows features a cafe and record store, is a ground floor tenant of the five-story 152 Ludlow Street. Read More

By Billy Gray 5/14 12:54pm

Food & Drink

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Jay-Z, Questlove Expand Restaurant Holdings With Dueling Chicken Joints

Two of New York’s preeminent hip-hop artists are making moves in the city’s casual restaurant scene this week.

Buffalo Boss, the organic and hormone-free wing shack that counts Jay-Z as an investor, signed a 10-year, 600-square-foot lease at, fittingly, 400 Jay Street in Downtown Brooklyn. And Questlove of The Roots and Late Night with Jimmy’s Fallon‘s house band, has partnered with blockbuster restaurateur Stephen Starr (Buddakan, Morimoto, and a slew of restaurants in his–and Questlove’s–native Philly) on Hybird, a drumstick, dumpling and cupcake purveyor that opens this Saturday at 75 Ninth Avenue in the Chelsea Market. Read More

By Billy Gray 5/03 4:38pm

Food & Drink

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Nightlife Duo Ink 5,000-SF Deal at Hidrock’s Herald Square Courtyard by Marriott

Nightlife hotshots Ric Addison and Stephen Daly have inked a 10-year deal for 5,000 square feet on the 18th floor of 71 West 35th Street, where the duo will open Monarch rooftop lounge atop a new Courtyard by Marriott hotel next month.

Steven Hidary and Robert Kaplan of Hidrock Realty, which owns the property, represented tenant and ownership in the transaction. Asking rent was about $600,000 annually. Read More

By Billy Gray 4/24 2:43pm

Food & Drink

A photo of Output before it opened. The club strictly prohibits photography.

Output Nightclub’s 2,500-SF “Penthouse,” Roofdeck Opens This Sunday in Williamsburg

On Sunday, just three months after its grand opening, the 11,424-square-foot Williamsburg dance club Output will officially debut its roughly 2,500-square-foot penthouse and rooftop bar.  The underground party promoter ReSolute will break in the space atop 74 Wythe Avenue, with Kiwi house DJ Recloose, along with resident talent, providing the soundtrack.

“It’s in the heart of Williamsburg with an amazing skyline view, and we have a feeling that we’re all going to [be] spending lots of time there this summer,” reads the ReSolute announcement. Plans for a penthouse and roof deck were included in the original Department of Buildings application filed by David Cutler, of Hustvedt Cutler Architects, in September of 2010. Read More

By Billy Gray 4/16 8:00am

Food & Drink

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Collaborative Workspace The Yard Seeks Cafe Partner for Lower East Side Branch

Williamsburg-based co-working space The Yard is expanding to the Lower East Side, and is looking to partner up with a cafe.

The office cooperative will open at 85 Delancey Street next month, with room to accommodate about 250 people. Organizers are looking to fill a 900-square-foot ground floor restaurant space with room for 26 people with a vendor that they hope will come from the neighborhood. Read More

By Billy Gray 4/09 7:45am

Food & Drink

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Pearl Street Restaurant Collection to be Fully Operational This Month After Sandy Delays

A team from Winick Realty Group has built on the restaurant boom it started on Maiden Lane and brought three new fast food tenants right around the corner to Pearl Street.

Yushi Asian Kitchen, Roti Mediterranean Grill and the quick service vegetarian vendor Terri have landed in a 4,800-square-foot block at the back of 100 Maiden Lane vacated by HSBC. Winick Executive Vice President Darrell Rubens and Director Lee Block divided and leased the space. Read More

By Billy Gray 4/02 1:20pm

Food & Drink

Gotham West (Credit: Gotham Organization)

On-Trend 5,000-Square-Foot Food Market Coming to Hell’s Kitchen

The Gotham Organization, the developer of a new residential building on 11th Avenue at 44th Street, will bring a 5,000-square-foot food market to the base of the property.

Vendors at Gotham West will include Brooklyn Kitchen, a Williamsburg-based butcher offering classes in pig carving and vegan tamale making, and Ivan Ramen, a self-professed “artisanal” noodle joint on the Lower East Side. Brooklyn Kitchen’s sausage-centric Meat Hook subsidiary is also a vendor at the open air Williamsburg Flea, the always mobbed seasonal food stall extravaganza that the Hell’s Kitchen market hopes to emulate. Read More

By Billy Gray 3/27 4:29pm

Food & Drink

Capsouto Freres (Credit: Town)

8,000-Square-Foot Capsouto Frères Space Hits the Market in Tribeca

Capsouto Frères, the French bistro at 451 Washington Street that closed for repairs following Hurricane Sandy, will not reopen, and Town Residential has listed its 8,000-square-foot space for rent at $35,000 a month.

The restaurant was a culinary pioneer in Tribeca when it opened in the postindustrial downtown neighborhood in 1980. Along with The Odeon, which since-estranged brothers Keith and Brian McNally opened with Lynn Wagenknecht the same year, Capsouto Frères put Tribeca on the celebrity and yuppie map, paving the cobblestone way for its dramatic gentrification. Read More

By Billy Gray 3/26 12:52pm

Food & Drink

The Lumberjack Slam at Denny's.

Residents at 150 Nassau Street Slam Proposed Denny’s Restaurant

Denny’s, the chain of 24-hour hour restaurants that calls itself “America’s diner,” signed its first New York City lease, and neighbors are queasy.

The company known for healthy portions of unhealthy grub has been eying Manhattan locations for some time, a spokesman told DNAinfo. Denny’s last year inked a deal for a ground floor space at the 23-story 150 Nassau Street, which went condo in 2003 and is a Grand Slamwich’s throw away from City Hall. Read More

By Billy Gray 3/19 7:45am

Food & Drink

849 Manhattan Avenue

Fornino Pizzeria Will Open At 849 Manhattan Avenue In Greenpoint Next Month

The Italian restaurant Fornino will be opening a new location at 849 Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint as early as next month.

Chef and partner Michael Ayoub opened Fornino at 187 Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg in 2004. The Neapolitan pies and pastas were enough of a hit to spawn an offshoot in Park Slope, where Mr. Ayoub made his name at Cucina in the early 1990s. His fortunes in the Brownstone neighborhood changed, and Mr. Ayoub abruptly left the restaurant. Fornino Park Slop closed last month. Read More

By Billy Gray 3/05 2:15pm

Food & Drink

A clip from a video of Harlem residents watching a "Harlem Shake" video.

Harlem Shake Craze Could Boost Business At Harlem Shake Burger Joint

The owner of an upcoming Harlem burger joint must be hoping that a current YouTube meme has long legs. Jelena Pasic settled on the name Harlem Shake for her restaurant six months ago, well before a series of amateur videos riffing on Brooklyn d.j. Bauer‘s song of the same name went viral, quickly racking up hundreds of millions of views.

The New York Post‘s Steve Cuozzo writes today that the happy coincidence has prompted a big spike in neighborhood interest in the humble eatery, with proprietors telling him they “never [had] in the back of our minds this whole phenomenon.” Ms. Pasic hopes that the enthusiasm lingers when Harlem Shake and its proposed 65-seat sidewalk cafe open in a few months on the corner of Lenox Avenue and 124th Street.  Read More

By Gus Delaporte 2/26 7:30am

Food & Drink

Restaurateur Signs Deal to Run World Financial Center Marketplace

Restaurateur Peter Poulakakos has signed on to run the 30,000-square-foot marketplace at Brookfield’s World Financial Center, the New York Post reported yesterday.

Poulakakos is perhaps best known as operator of coffee chain Financier Patisserie but also oversees downtown restaurants Harry’s Café, Harry’s Steak, Adrienne’s Pizza Bar, Ulysses’ and Bayard’s.

“We met with everyone who has the expertise and desire to open a world class market in Manhattan and we were really blown away by Peter’s vision for marketplace,” Edward Hogan, Brookfield’s national director of retail leasing, told The Commercial Observer. Read More