A new restaurant called the Boilery is opening at 710 Amsterdam between 94th and 95th Streets. There isn’t much information about the place yet, aside from the fact that the sign says it will serve seafood and grilled food. Thanks to Danielle for the tip.
Two local Capital One branches are closing, according to a sign outside one of them. The branches on 97th and Columbus and on 94th and Broadway are both slated to close in May.
Ikinari Steak at 2233 Broadway (79th-80th) has closed not long after opening. The Japanese chain quickly dialed back a Manhattan expansion plan. Thanks to Jonathan for the tip.
Steven Alan, the clothing store at 465 Amsterdam between 82nd and 83rd, appears to have closed. The store has been cleared out, it’s not on the Steven Alan website and it’s reported as closed on Yelp. Thanks to Michelle, Gavan, Lauren and Kate for tips.
Kim’s Tailor and Cleaner has found a new home at 2420 Broadway, and will move from its home at 200 West 89th Street. It’s great news for a shop that was nearly forced to close. Thanks to Sam for the tip.
I hope the new location won’t require a higher rent that will result in higher prices. What is the cross street of 2420 Broadway?
Right around the corner on Broadway closer to 90th; a few doors down from Chase Bank IIRC.
The long vacant “Toy Store” space is my best guess as it is the only empty retail on that block.
https://42floors.com/us/ny/manhattan/2420-broadway?listings=1357145
That building is a co-op, thus maybe either someone in the building (and or on the board), or whatever connections helped make the deal possible. Am only guessing, and obviously have no idea what went on.
Kim’s Tailor and Cleaner is going from basement on side street to ground floor retail on a major avenue. That should help with visibility and hopefully lead to an increase in business.
I hear ya Molly ! . Kims Cleaners is a nice , local business but the prices they charge are high already .. can they go higher? I belivee they are moving to someplace next to the dunkin on 89th/90th browdway
Ms. Kim is a sole proprietor of a small business. Even with just that one employee she must clear enough each month not only to cover all businesses expenses (including wages/compensation for that one employee), but hopefully turn a profit. That is she must make enough to live upon as well.
Prices are high because cost of living and doing business in New York are high as well. Also in a small tailor/laundry shop like Kim’s there is a natural physical limit to how much work can be completed in one day.
Unless she has customers all willing to wait several weeks, a month or longer to get their things back Ms. Kim like other tailors must often work these days all the hours God gives to make a living, this with even “high” prices.
I’ve passed many of these small tailor shops late at night (after say 11PM and see someone bent over a sewing machine or whatever hard at work.
Thank you for the background
The Boilery sounds promising.
There are two Capital One branches in the neighborhood? Who knew.
I talked with Choi, owner of Kim’s. Her rent is going to be very expensive at the new location, so please patronize her business if you can! besides doing alterations (which I mostly use her for) It’s also a dry cleaners.
Does she do her own dry cleaning, or is it sent out? If the latter then why not offer drop off laundry service as well. I mean long as she’s sending things off to wholesale cleaning plants anyway….
I’m always happy to support a local business, but I wonder if dry cleaners are going the way of buggy whip sellers. I wash most items, even those marked dry clean only, in a delicate cycle, and they’re fine.
Casual Fridays, along with general trend towards less formal dress is killing the dry cleaning industry. Then you have the move towards more “easy care” clothing that can be laundered at home.
NYT ran an excellent piece of the slow death of Chinese (or whatever nationality) hand laundries. Fewer and fewer men are wearing dress shirts five days a week. Of those who do few want (or can afford) services of hand washing and ironing. Everything goes to corner or whatever laundries that send them out to wholesalers. That or they are done on in on premises plants, but totally by machine.
Then there are online/app based dry cleaning/laundry services.
There is also another restaurant opening in the same block as The Boilery, a Mexican restaurant, on the corner of 95th and Amsterdam, where Acqua used to be.
Being a New Englander, I truly look forward to The Boilery. You can’t get a good lobster anymore since El Quijote closed after over 30 years, which was next to the Chelsea Hotel.
It’s sad when you mourn a bank branch closing on Broadway as it will be one more desolate vacant lot on that stretch of misery in the 90s
Banks have been pulling back/closing branches all over the city for some time now.
As with everything else part if it is a push for customers to do more online, that is if they haven’t already. So much banking now is done electronically/online (direct deposit, transfers, sending/receiving money, etc…), that need for physical branches is waning. At least having one on every corner.
Ironic isn’t it? People moaned and wailed about banks and Starbucks gobbling up so much ground floor retail. Now both are contracting and people are upset at their disappearance.
Ikinari might have had a greater chance for success if they hadn’t made the exterior look like the Japanese version of Tad’s.
El Quijote is still open!
Afraid not, MFS. My husband and I ate there the last night they were open.
https://ny.eater.com/2018/3/30/17176932/el-quijote-closing-last-look-chelsea-hotel-nyc
Loved and miss El Quijote. A remnant of the old chelsea days
The Boilery will essentially be the same type of place as The Boil. Not a bad thing. Could use more of these types of places. Hopefully they will have crawfish.