City Winery Closes Grand Central Location Early, Making Way for Grand Brasserie
By Mark Hallum August 26, 2024 11:22 am
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City Winery has squashed its last grape at the space it licensed in Grand Central Terminal, quietly closing its doors to make way for a 400-seat brasserie.
The music and vino venue ended its agreement with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority early, having signed a three-year deal in April 2022 in which it would pay the transit agency $500,000 for the first year along with 8 percent of gross sales.
In its place will rise the Grand Brasserie, which will serve up French staples in the 15,888-square-foot section of the west wing of Vanderbilt Hall. Rick Blatstein’s Vizz Group signed a licensing agreement with the MTA for Grand Brasserie — after City Winery was given permission by the MTA to assign its deal to Vizz — and has started hiring staff.
The New York Post first reported the transaction.
The MTA, City Winery and Blatstein, who sold his airport hospitality company OTG in January, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Matt Chmielecki and Preston Cannon of CBRE represented the MTA in the deal. A spokesperson for CBRE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
It’s unclear exactly when City Winery shuttered at Grand Central, but it may have closed sometime around April, with an Easter brunch being its last promotion on the reservation website Resy.
City Winery would have been going into its third year in the space, in which its fees would increase to $1 million for the year and 10 percent of gross sales.
The swap follows a series of post-pandemic retail struggles for the MTA. The City Winery space in Grand Central’s Vanderbilt Hall was previously occupied by the Great Northern Food Hall. The MTA put out a request for proposals to replace the tenant in 2020 but canceled the RFP later that year due to lack of interest.
CBRE was tapped to find a short-term tenant, and City Winery signed its deal for the space in 2022.
More than a year and a half since Grand Central Madison opened to Long Island Rail Road commuters below the terminal, the MTA still has not announced a deal for a master tenant to manage the 25,000 square feet of retail in the new facility despite issuing an RFP in April.
The agency also launched a legal battle in February to keep Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield as the master tenant for the Fulton Center Stores, despite the retailer complaining it needed to shutter because of rampant crime.
Mark Hallum can be reached at mhallum@commercialobserver.com.
