By Scott Etkin and Lisa Kava
Capital One Café, a café and co-working space operated by the large banking chain, is opening at the corner of 60th Street and Broadway. While you don’t need to bank with Capital One to visit the space, cardholders get discounts on the menu, which includes coffee from Verve Coffee Roasters. The café will be staffed with “Café Ambassadors” and “Money & Life Mentors” to answer customers’ financial questions, but the website promises a “sales-free environment.” Capital One has cafés across the country, including two already in New York City, at East 59th Street and Lexington Avenue and Herald Square. The Upper West Side location is on the ground floor of Anagram, a new luxury tower. (Thanks to the Lincoln Square Business Improvement District for the tip.)
The Chelsea House, the seafood, grill, and cocktail restaurant at 710 Amsterdam (between 94th and 95th streets), has closed. There is a notice on the storefront posted by the City Marshal stating that the landlord has filed a claim against Chelsea House and has taken legal possession of the premises. Chelsea House’s original location downtown on 24th Street and 9th Avenue remains open but the Upper West Side location, which opened in fall 2022, is no longer on the company’s website.
Marine Layer, a clothing store known for casual, comfortable apparel “for a seven-day weekend,” is opening on Friday, March 15, at 420 Columbus Avenue (between West 80th and 81st Streets). Rituals, the skincare and cosmetics shop, which closed in spring 2022, was previously in the space. Marine Layer has approximately 50 stores nationwide and had a West Side store lower down on Columbus Avenue (between 69th and 70th) since 2019. That location closed in January when the lease was up and preparations to move to the new spot higher on Columbus were immediately underway. Customers may stop by the store to purchase a “RE-SPUN Take Back Bag” (cost is $20) as part of their “improved program where we will recycle your old stuff and provide you with a store credit,” Jen Sanford, the New York area manager told West Side Rag. Marine Layer recycles the donated clothing to make new clothing using the material, Sanford explained. “Anything that cannot be used for clothing will be used for another purpose.” Hours will be 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday through Saturday, closing an hour earlier on Sundays. “The space is beautiful,” Sanford told WSR. “I can’t wait to meet all of our new customers and am hopeful that our customers from 70th Street will make the journey 10 blocks north to visit us.”
Qahwah House, a Michigan-based business serving Yemeni coffee is opening on Broadway between West 111th and 112th Streets. They serve coffee and tea shipped from farms in Yemen as well as Yemeni pastries, the manager of the West Village location told the Rag. With stores in the West Village and Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the company is expanding and opening more locations nationwide. Their top seller is a chai tea, the West Village manager said. They serve lattes with Yemeni spices — ginger cardamom, cinnamon, and honey. Shaking Crab was formerly in the space. (Thanks to David and Tracy for the tips.)
The Starbucks on the corner of 73rd Street and Columbus has re-opened after being temporarily closed for a few days to fix a broken pipe in the basement, according to a barista working there. Two other Starbucks locations nearby still have signs posted saying they are temporarily closed – 81st and Columbus has been closed since August 2023 and 63rd and Broadway since February 2024. The Starbucks at the corner of 75th and Broadway is expected to re-open in the fall after a renovation.
We can’t provide the exact timing, but Shake Shack is coming to The Shops at Columbus Circle (West 59th Street). This will be the second location on the Upper West Side for restaurateur Danny Meyer’s international chain, which famously started as a hot dog cart in Madison Square Park in 2001 as an effort to revitalize the area. The location at 77th and Columbus, across the street from the American Museum of Natural History, opened in 2008 and quickly became a popular spot for both locals and tourists visiting AMNH. There’s also a Morningside Heights location on West 116th Street and Broadway. (Thanks to the Lincoln Square Business Improvement District for the tip.)
A new flower shop is rumored to have opened on West 86th Street just east of Columbus Avenue. The space was previously home to another flower shop, Flowers on the Park, which is still located in the neighborhood at 520 Amsterdam (85th Street). We’ll post an update when we have more information. (Thanks to Linda for the tip.)
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So we have any idea what is going on with the kosher grocery on 93rd and Amsterdam? The sign is up but it doesn’t look like work is being done. Did it open for a bit and then close?
I am glad a clothing store is actually opening up!
Chai tea is redundant! It’s just chai!
I will certainly try the Yemeni coffee. I have always found the African coffees best to my liking. My current favorite is from Zimbabwe which I buy at Samad’s up on W. 112 St. They have a great variety of beans from many countries.
Yemen is the Arabian peninsula
I wasn’t meaning to imply it was in Africa. I was just stating my current preference for African coffees and at the same time planning to try the coffee from Yemen.
Today I was at Shops at Columbus Circle having lunch at Tartinery and saw the space where the new Shake Shack is opening. It’s on the third floor. Don’t want to be a downer but this isn’t the right place for that. The whole mall is going to stink like burgers and fries, plus it’s not the mid-upscale direction I think we were all hoping the Shops would go back to…total mistake on part of the leasing team…
I’m personally thankful, I find Columbus Circle to be a food desert of sorts. Yes, there’s stuff, but nothing you’d really want to eat in a pinch
There are so many vacancies on the second and third floors of the mall, they’re probably desperate to get any tenant who will activate the space.
Shake Shack is so popular with tourists in NYC (personally I don’t get the love?) – but it is just one more chain in other cities.
No crowds clamoring or on line for Shake Shack in Boca Raton etc.
Chelsea House was a wild addition to the block for its brief tenure. Cops there almost every weekend, cars double and triple parked in the street basically turning Amsterdam into a parking lot, blasting music, even stumbled upon a twenty person brawl outside one Friday night.
Please let something decent come to this seemingly cursed block. It’s such a high traffic area with great proximity to transportation surrounded by a densely populated slice of the UWS. Now three vacant storefronts populate it.
Unless things have moved very quickly since yesterday, when I last passed the shop, nothing’s open yet in the old Flowers on the Park space on West 86th. Every few days someone shows up and adds an intriguing tchotchke or two — driftwood in the window, a few taped-up postcards, some nice antique-looking showcases. Somebody’s got a nice eye, and I’m eager to see what will emerge. But as of yesterday, nope, nothing,
Finally, a classic old school mom-and-pop cafe with all the personal touches! Thanks giant international financial conglomerate!
I’ve heard from multiple people that Bin 70 and the weed shop/convenience store next to it on West End between 69th & 70th are being combined and Starbucks is moving in. Can anyone confirm?
Verve coffee finally!
Why is Capital One competing against local mom and pop shops? Do they really need the money?
Capital One cafe’s are designed to encourage co-working and similar uses.
As opposed to Starbucks or even small “mom and pop” places taken over by people with laptops who camp out for several hours and usually never purchase anything more than one drink. This while they suck up free Wi-Fi, seating/table space, hog restrooms, etc….
Starbucks model of being a “third place” is rapidly coming to an end. In case you’ve not noticed remaining stores have far less seating than in past. Stores that weren’t renovated that way had to change regardless during covid, most never reinstalled removed seating.
How Capital One plans to make their cafes profitable compared to say Starbucks or even small independent places remains to be seen.
https://www.capitalone.com/learn-grow/money-management/explore-capital-one-cafes/