The Bryant Park Grill.
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Final October, the folks behind the 30-year-old Bryant Park Grill rang the emergency bells: Assist save our restaurant. The operator, the publicly traded firm Ark Eating places, realized that it was possible getting the boot to make means for celeb chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Seaport Leisure. The Bryant Park Company (which leases the house) revealed in January that it was awarding the restaurant to the latter group. Now, the tip is close to. Ark’s lease for the Porch, an out of doors house, expires at this time. Its lease for the Grill is up on the finish of April. However its CEO, Michael Weinstein, isn’t happening with no struggle. Right now, Ark filed a lawsuit in opposition to the BPC over “a sham bidding course of” that favored “an inferior bidder” in Vongerichten and Seaport.
In its grievance, Ark argues the court docket ought to uphold the group’s “rights to a lawful and correct bidding course of” and declare that “Bryant Park belongs to the folks” and isn’t the “non-public property” of BPC and its president, Dan Biederman. “Dan has made Bryant Park his personal little fiefdom,” Weinstein says. “He did 26 million bucks in income within the park final yr. It’s now not a public park, it’s a enterprise.” The BPC (initially the Bryant Park Restoration Company) was based in 1980 and by 1983 had proposed an $18 million redevelopment of the park that included a safety drive and “big glass restaurant.” It was a celebrated transformation, at the same time as folks raised concern concerning the public-private partnership. Right now, “Manhattan’s City Sq.” gives woodcock watching and an internet retailer with $550 classic park chairs, and hosts the crowded, Financial institution of America–sponsored vacation market. Ark has been concerned since 1995 when it opened the Bryant Park Grill. It’s one of many nation’s top-grossing eating places, and mixed revenues for its three park companies — which additionally embrace the Porch and Bryant Park Café — quantity to $28 million a yr.
In 2023, the BPC posted a request for proposals from restaurateurs desirous about leasing the areas. Whereas Biederman — who has no touch upon the litigation however “seems ahead to welcoming Seaport Leisure Group” within the coming months — says that 11 eating places have been significantly thought-about, Ark alleges that “it had turn into clear that BPC have been positioning Seaport to prevail.” The swimsuit additionally alleges that the Seaport bid supplied $1 million much less in annual hire, whereas additionally receiving prolonged working hours and $2 million towards deliberate renovations. Biederman himself has appeared to again up this allegation: “This metropolis and others fairly often go for the best hire supply, and we stated, can we afford not to try this?” he stated in a December assembly of the local people board’s parks and public areas committee.
Vongerichten is one in all New York’s most well-known cooks, and his cachet permits him to cost excessive costs. (A six-course dinner is a steep $298 earlier than tax and tip — a step under the priciest eating places within the metropolis.) It’s apparent why any landlord with a primary location would possibly wish to do enterprise with him, given his pedigree. However Ark says Vongerichten is barely the general public face, and that the restaurant can be run by Seaport Leisure, which it argues “has no document of working a profitable New York restaurant.” The 2 partnered on the Tin Constructing, a splashy, costly revamp of the previous Fulton Fish Market constructing. On the time, the associated fee to construct it was touted as $194 million, though it’s unclear how a lot of that went to rebuilding the pier. Extra urgent is the truth that the operation has currently been shedding Seaport Leisure over $100,000 a day and shedding labor. Ark’s 250 workers on the Bryant Park Grill will undoubtedly must search for different jobs, because the restaurant will shut for not less than a yr of renovations.
“You’re doing a take care of Seaport, you’re throwing out 250 workers, and also you’re accepting not less than $1.2 million, $1.4 million much less in hire. Who does that?” Weinstein says. “It’s a catastrophe for the park.”
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