Two clothing stores on Columbus Avenue are selling off inventory at a discount as they prepare to close and an old flower store suddenly shut its doors. Check out that and more in our roundup below.
Academy Floral: Academy moved from 107th street to 2628 Broadway (100th street) just a few months ago. But earlier this month, the city marshal slapped a notice on the door giving the landlord legal possession, and a for-rent sign went up. Academy Floral, around since 1910, is no longer accepting orders. Thanks to the many people who sent in tips on this.
Pookie & Sebastian: The women’s clothing store on Columbus between 75th and 76th street is closing at the end of December, readers tell us. The store is offering 25% to 75% off.
Purdy Girl: The clothing store on Columbus between 81st and 82nd street is closing, with plans to reopen at another undisclosed location. They’re also having a sale of up to 80% off. Purdy Girl has another location on Thompson near Bleecker.
Starbucks: The location on 86th and Columbus signed a new 10-year lease. The space had been advertised for $59,250 a month, but it’s not clear how much they eventually signed for.
Sprint: The Radio Shack and the former Payless on 94th and Broadway will be transformed into a Sprint store, a construction worker told Linda Rosenthal.
Essentials: Shelves have been bare at the drugstore on 81st and Broadway for the past couple of weeks, but employees were not clear wioth readers what was happening. A manager told one of our tipsters yesterday that they were refreshing the inventory: “they had actually just gotten $20,000 worth of merchandise in today that they are working on putting out at that exact moment.”
PicNic Market & Cafe: After announcing it would close months ago, the restaurant on Broadway between 101st and 102nd hung on with a month-to-month lease, before finally closing this weekend. Christy Tanner took a shot of the sign below. It was around for more than 10 years.
Thanks to all of our tipsters, Keep sending in tips and photos!
Does anyone know what happened with Academy Floral? It was very sudden. I was excited to finally have a tenant in that spot, it had been vacant for years and Academy Floral definitely brightened up the block!
Real shame about PicNic, classiest restaurant in that area, excellent food, excellent service, excellent everything. Commercial rents are out of control.
Cheapest bottle of wine at Picnic was $40, so as their old customers with rent control died off, not even student loan indebted professionals could afford to replace them. Despite their science lectures being popular, they lacked basic man food. No Google millionaires want to live on the UWS rather than Williamsburg which likes instead of hates entrepreneurship. Banning half the craft fair and killing the Alamo theatre with red tape sent out a message for creative professionals to stay off your lawn, UWS. The express line puts 24/7 Koreatown mere minutes away, and boy do they appreciate the late night business.
Once the Alamo people looked very hard at the numbers it would have taken to make a profit (the venue was really too small for their needs), they made the call from Austin to call off the deal. They were most unhappy about having to do so.
This is really ignorant. And the UWS opened its arms to Alamo in every way.
You forgot to blame President Obama.
Essentials is looking so sad, especially the upstairs. I wish something great would happen there
We would have eaten more at PicNic if they had gotten an ‘A’ from the health department. That ‘B’ in the window always gave us pause.
the majority of NYC restaurants currently fall into the B category. do you realize you can get a B rating for having improper construction of a non-food surface, no mechanical ventilation installed, or a cook/server having a glass of water without a lid that is nowhere near the food? i work in the restaurant business- a B doesn’t necessarily mean rat turds. you can also go to the nyc.gov website very easily and look at every single infraction that every single restaurant in the city has received.
I think there’s something more to the Academy Florist shutdown. It just seems too weird for them to move to a giant space only to have it be shut down. Maybe Extell wanted more money?
As for Picnic… we really liked it when it first open. It was a definite treat for us to go and the food was always fresh and good. But in the past five years, it has gone seriously downhill in my opinion. Nonetheless, it is always sad to see a local business shut down.
Academy Floral simply didn’t pay their rent. That is after all the costs of renovating and moving. Sounds like someone (at Academy) didn’t due their operational cost calculations.
Grub Street is reporting that Harry’s Burritos is planning to close, too.
Yeah, I just read that. So that leaves Blockheads and The Great Burrito (which isn’t so great) as our only non-chain options.
Er, and Oaxaca. And Cafe Frida. And El Mitote. Gabriela’s, Cilantro, Taco Grill, Rosa Mexicano….
Broadway Pizza has remarkably good burritos too.
My guess is that the rent hike at 107th was too much, and they bit off more than they could chew at the new location. They moved, but not a lot of their customers followed.
I only had one experience with Academy Floral and it wasn’t very good. Earlier this year I ordered some simple corsages and boutineers for a wedding and paid at the time of order. When we went to pick them up a week later (as agreed upon), they weren’t ready and told us to come back later. We came back a few hours later and they had the order completely wrong, and then tried to charge us more money (this wasn’t a rocket science order)…. They gave us attitude, seemed annoyed by our patronage, and tried to tell us we placed the order wrong.
I spent 15 years in retail when I was young, this is not how you treat customers.
I had very mixed experiences with Academy. I used to patronize them occasionally when they were at 106th, but their prices were high and the service was never great. I stopped going once they moved, but decided to walk down there a few weeks ago to pick up an orchid plant for a special occasion. They were all exorbitantly priced so I left empty-handed. I’m not surprised they were unable to stay in business. There are better, more affordable, options, including Plant Shed on 96th.
What ever happened about the Maille mustard store?
re: Essentials
“…they had actually just gotten $20,000 worth of merchandise in today that they are working on putting out at that exact moment…”
$20K worth of merchandise in a health beauty retail store will barely fill a couple of shelves. Hardly a good sign.
I’m glad to see Starbucks resigned their lease. I hope they can serve as a bit of an “anchor” tenant in a stretch of blocks that is incredibly barren. I fully support and understand the need for local business, but I am happy to see these guys stick around.
The new Radio Shack that replaced the one on 94th is now open, on Broadway between 96th and 97th. It’s pretty awesome and slick looking – one of their “new concept” stores.
I was quite a fan of Academy Floral and found them easier (and less expensive) to deal with than Plant Shed on 96th. I had nothing but great experiences when I was doing some work with a wedding planner a couple years ago and had to pick up bouquets on a frequent basis.
The spot on the West side of Bway between 96-97 that had been vacant next to the 7-11 now has a Radio Shack there. Sprung up like a mushroom in the last few days!