Wonder Bar, New Wine Bar and Cafe, to Open at Woolworth Building

Wonder Bar, a new all-day cafe and natural wine bar, will open at the historic Woolworth Building by the end of this year.

Wonder Bar — which will offer fast-casual, grab-and-go breakfast and lunch during the day and a wine-based menu at night — signed a 15-year lease for 1,114 square feet on the ground floor of the 60-story landmarked building at 233 Broadway near City Hall Park, according to Cammeby’s International, which owns the commercial portion of the property along with Witkoff Group.

The new cafe and wine bar concept was developed by the same team behind French-inspired restaurant and lounge Goody’s, which will also open this year at the Woolworth in a 5,000-square-foot ground-floor space, as Commercial Observer previously reported.

Wonder Bar, which will offer organic wines and small plates, will take over cocktail bar Five & Dime’s former space at 8 Park Place following the cocktail bar’s lease expiration in March, according to a release. 8 Park Place is an address within the Woolworth Building, which was the world’s tallest building from 1913 until 1929.

“With Wonder Bar, we wanted to preserve the spirit of what the Five & Dime space meant to the neighborhood — accessible, welcoming and familiar — while bringing something fresh and contemporary to the Woolworth Building,” Studio Castellano’s Ron Castellano, the architect of the space, said in a statement.

“The design of the space will balance daytime practicality for tenants and the community with a refined, natural aesthetic that mirrors the menu,” Castellano added.

The exact asking rent in the deal was not provided, but the average asking rent for the Woolworth’s ground-floor retail space is $175 per square foot, according to Cammeby’s website.

The Lawrence Group’s Brian Siegel and David Ofman brokered the deal for both the tenant and the landlord.

Siegel and spokespeople for Cammeby’s and Witkoff did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Wonder Bar and Goody’s will both open later this year and serve as a destination for the Woolworth’s office tenants, which include Hawthorne Country Day School, architecture and design firm CallisonRTKL and finance journal Grant’s Interest Rate Observer.

Isabelle Durso can be reached at idurso@commercialobserver.com.