A bank is moving to a long-vacant space as restaurants and a nail salon get set to open.
Wells Fargo is moving into the long-vacant space at 70th street and Amsterdam Avenue next to Paris Baguette. The bank’s is location at 2040 Broadway (70th street) is up for rent. Thanks to Karyn for the photo, and Andrew for tips.
Amber has put up the awning at its new home on 70th street just west of Columbus, in the former home of Barrique. That space has had a very unlucky recent history, with several restaurants closing in just the past few years. Thanks to Karyn for the tip.
A nail salon appears to be moving into the former Radio Shack on 72nd street between West End Avenue and Broadway, says Gretchen.
Macchina has finally offered a peek at what it will be serving. Check out a section of the menu below, courtesy of Bryant Palmer.
45 dollars for a steak? HA. We’ll see how well these ridiculous prices work out for them.
$17 for arugula ($1 cost) button mushrooms ($1 cost), horseradish ($0.25 cost) and parmesan ($2 cost)? So you get about $4.50 worth of food, if that, for $17. Great deal!
Labor, rent, insurance, maintenance, equipment, licenses, permits, etc., etc. It’s not that ‘$1-cost-for-arugula’ simple…
David – you are confusing a restaurant with a grocery store.
very well put
Thank you Kenneth….very well put and dead on. So annoying when people compare grocery store prices to restaurant prices. Restaurants are not charity and you pay for more than just the food when you go out to a nice restaurant.
Giving your customers less value is the absolutely wrong way to save a failing restaurant.
What should prices be when the monthly rent is $20k? Most restaurants that stay in business do so on alcohol sales.
NYT Regulars Mourn Closing of Ouest, Another New York Restaurant Lost to Escalating Rent:
Mr. Valenti intoned a familiar refrain in explaining the decision to shut down: “Escalating rents, escalating rents, escalating rents.”
Without getting too deep into numbers, he said the rents in that corridor of Broadway had jumped significantly since Ouest opened 14 years ago. Ouest was paying “in the high 20s,” Mr. Valenti said, or a bit less than $30,000 a month; he said a listing for the space Ouest occupied had mentioned $550,000 a year, or about $46,000 a month. He said that most restaurants would be doing well if they posted a 10 percent profit. “What that means is, we’d have to do $5 million business for $500,000 rent,” he said, and Ouest could not bring in that much business.
Also, competition is all around nowadays.
“There are 2,000 more seats than there were five years ago,” Mr. Valenti said. “There’s a Chipotle on 83rd and Broadway.”
Another problem is the way the neighborhood has changed. There are more families with children now, and families eat out less often. “There are costs of school and everything,” Mr. Valenti said.
He said he had tried to offset expenses with a smaller staff, a less varied menu and other tricks. “Keeping the lights off during the day,” he said. “Cheaper garbage bags.” Smaller martini glasses.
The regulars noticed. “We would say: ‘Why did you take the sturgeon off the menu?’ ‘Why did you take the lamb off the menu?’ ” Mr. White said. “As soon as a dish became really, really popular, they found some reason to take it off the menu. If you’d never been there and you came in and you ate there, you’d still say, ‘Wow, this is really good food,’ but it was maybe 60 or 70 percent of what it used to be.”
Financially, Mr. Valenti said, Ouest had endured “a steady decline over the last six years.” –www.nytimes.com/2015/06/15/nyregion/regulars-mourn-closing-of-ouest-another-new-york-restaurant-lost-to-escalating-rent.html
You are so right that restaurant prices are not grocery store prices BUT that doesn’t mean the restaurant has to overprice items on menu. I’ve been in the restaurant business and one of my best friends owned one in midtown and would totally agree that prices can get overblown!!!
not unusual as far as restaurant economics go
So $17 salads are now the norm on 106th street. Wow, must be $27 around 66th street then.
Read more carefully. It is BRESAOLA (with) those ingredients. Bresaola is the cost item.
ANOTHER nail salon on 72nd Street? Jeez….That makes for about 7 from WEA to the Park. (And yes, I’ll be one of the ol’ UWSers and remember all the great, diverse stores that used to be on that strip.)
Glad Wells Fargo isn’t leaving the ‘hood. Well-run company (unlike the other big banks) with great service. And they purposely choose NOT to be on every other corner! (again, unlike the other biggies). Great partner to my small biz.
and the hits keep right on coming
um – PEEK not PEAK. Thank you!
If restaurant prices alienate you, then eat at home. That’s what I do!
Good for you. Btw, seems like you are not the only one given more restaurants are closing than are opening. Charging $17 for a salad at a restaurant of Macchina’s level is absurd. They may think they will be able to pay the ridiculous rent, over the top decor, large staff, high insurance…but doubtful that will be the case a couple of years from now when they close.
If pizza prices are too high for you, just go to Bruchetta (used to be Buca) a few blocks away. Great Brick oven pizza at good prices.
Or go to Sal’s Pizza (now called Sal and Carmine’s) They are one of the best and been on UWS for over 45 years. And the other great pizza place that’s been around forever is V&T’s.
Or you could go to the local neighborhood slicery on Amsterdam that has been a staple to locals for years, Mamas Pizzaria on 106th and Amsterdam. This expensive piece of Giuliani will be gone in a few years, over priced and over rated.
This. Be prepared, its a small place.
That being said, it is a little pricey for 106th st. There are a fair number of restaurants nearby that are a little more… competitive in pricing.
Maybe the food is good enough to justify? We’ll see…
Went for a drink at the bar to check it out – bartenders are clueless. They have a cocktail menu (like every other pretentious eatery) and the bartender was putting rosemary into a glass. I asked what drink he was making and he indicated that this was basil for the special gin drink. Okey-dokey. With all the good restaurant staff looking for work I don’t quite understand why this crew is so inept. It looks very swanky, but if they ain’t pouring good drinks…my negroni was not good. My friend tried last night and she said they couldn’t figure out a 5 oz. pour of wine – she got a thimbleful and had to complain…perhaps not ready for primetime.
I mean Macchina being a little overpriced. Buca is legit.
The space Wells Fargo is moving into has been opening and closing for ages, nothing has been able to stick there. I think TD Bank had a location there that also closed after a not very long time. It’s been used as a popup store location several times as well, but nothing permanent has ever been able to maintain itself at that location. Maybe this time things will work out!
Menu looks overpriced to me. $8 for Garlic Knots? Pepperoni Pizza $17? Good luck. I doubt I’ll eat there very often. Beware the fate of the other pricey Italian restaurant (bocca y boca?) on W. 85th Street. They don’t seem to do well up here, Cibo Y Vino nothwithstanding. (Ciby Y Vino has pretty traditional dishes)
Remember when Varelli (Broadway bet. 111th and 112th raised its prices. No one went, and it had to lower them again. It’s now out of business.
Disappointed about the nail salon as there is already one just a few doors down. Why is Wells Fargo moving across the street? Lower rent on Amsterdam?
Hopefully something good will come to Wells Fargo’s current location at 70th and Broadway.
And by “something good” I don’t mean a) a bank, b) a Duane Reade, or c) a restaurant that charges $45 for a piece of meat.
We just ate dinner at Macchina. The food is quite tasty and made with fresh ingredients but for me to become a regular customer they’ll need to either decrease their prices or increase their serving size. We each had one glass of wine and split a salad and a pizza. The bill came to $53 before tip and we were both still hungry.
As far as some people on here are concerned a $17 salad on 106th street is very reasonable, because, you know, the restaurant owners need to make money to pay for all those high costs. So if you have something against that then stay home. But you will surely miss the two paper thin slices of brisola on your salad, what makes it all worth the $17. So after tax and tips your salad is now closer to $22. Bargain for 106th street.
FAO Schwartz should have moved into the space that Wells Fargo has – Perfect for PS199 🙂
Recently dined at the The Ribbon, the new restaurant on 72nd Street between CPW and Columbus. It is part of the Blue Ribbon family. I was unimpressed but willing to give it another chance. Read my take at: https://wp.me/p3Yngf-3ve
Did I miss a post about Gazala’s closing? Tried to order them on Seamless tonight and saw it’s closed. They don’t answer their phone either. I’m so sad about this one!
When is someone going to do something with the old Food City building on Columbus and 94?
Just ate at macchina last night. Very expensive with small portions. I had a rigatoni meal for 16 dollars that literally had 8 pieces of rigatoni. $11 for a Nutella cheesecake that looked store bought.
Nice place, but won’t survive if they don’t increase portions and/or decrease prices.
Does anyone know what is going in to the old Tani shoe store on 69th and Broadway? Praying it isn’t another bank!!!
A bank where Amber was. What happened to Gale Brewers promise to curtail bank and street space?