By Gus Saltonstall
Jacob’s Pickles, the popular Upper West Side bar and restaurant, appears closer to opening at its new Upper West Side storefront.
Over the past week, signage for the eatery went up at 688 Columbus Avenue, between West 93rd and 94th streets.
The move from Jacob’s Pickles Upper West Side home at 509 Amsterdam Avenue, between West 84th and 85th streets, was first announced at a Community Board 7 meeting in May of 2024. The new location, which most recently housed a restaurant called Agave, but will be best known by locals as the longtime location of the popular Mexican restaurant Gabriella’s, is almost double the size of Jacob’s Pickles’ current space on Amsterdam.
On Sunday morning, a woman was painting Jacob’s Pickles onto multiple surfaces across the front of the restaurant.
Originally, Jacob Hadjigeorgis, the owner of Jacob’s Pickles, said he hoped the new space would be open in September of 2024, but that opening date has been pushed back.
A spokesperson for Jacob’s Pickles told West Side Rag on Monday afternoon that they are aiming for an early-September opening at the Columbus Avenue address, but that no specific date had been selected yet.
Jacob’s Pickles’ current home on Amsterdam Avenue, which is still in operation, will become a new bar from the same owner called the Velvet Cowboy.
The Rag will update this story if and when we hear back from the restaurant.
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With double their current space I hope this new location will make them better neighbors. Currently they have taken over nearly the entire sidewalk and their customers often block sidewalk access to anyone trying to pass through.
Are they trespassing on your private property?
The sidewalk blocking has become a safety issue as people in wheelchairs and strollers are forced onto the street. It really is dramatic public access is nil
Jacob’s Pickles patio didn’t extend beyond what the previous restaurants used. The sidewalk width is according to NYC code.
The real culprit on that particular block is the combination of bus stop cage plus an extended tree bed. The tree beds have to be larger now according to the code.
Victor,
Jacob’s extends beyond the frontage of the school yard garden.
Just there today.
I do not see how that is legal?
Not ok IMO.
This article is about the JP new location at Columbus Ave at 93rd Street. No school here.
Excuse me! The space problem is the existence of a bus shelter for waiting bus passengers and a tree bed, but not the use of public space for private commercial profit. Talk about entitled!
There is lots of open space upstate if you don’t want to walk past a busy restaurant.
I can push through the crowds on my way to Trader Joe’s. For me it’s the noise. If I can hear that restaurant in my apartment there are going to be problems.
It seems like this would only be a problem once — walk on the other side of the street during peak hours or say “excuse me”. I walk down there all the time and have never had this often-repeated problem.
We should welcome vibrancy and community in our neighborhoods. I feel like people find a reason to complain the moment someone is having a nice time.
Kay,
To play “Devil’s s Advocate” so to speak….
If there was a nursing home for people with significant disabilities and/or elderly.
And the nursing home used the sidewalk for various purposes, including dining space for residents in wheelchairs….
Would that be acceptable in your opinion?
Would that be an essential aspect of the community?
My point exactly. Always about themselves, never the community. But they live in the area just to complain! LAME!!!!!!
Regularly blocking people from using the sidewalk including people with strollers or in wheelchairs is never ok. Other people shouldn’t have to walk on the other side of the street when the restaurant can choose to be a better neighbor and have people waiting for tables queue up in a more orderly fashion.
I welcome businesses that care about their customers and their neighborhood. Most places do!
Yeah, but the vibrant community pillars are having a nice time…so much so they can’t be bothered NOT to block the entire sidewalk in middle of their vibrant community-building nice time…unless, of course, you say “excuse me” to the vibrant community-minded nice-time-having neighbors about 30 times “the moment” you attempt walking down the entire block… Or, since their moment of having a nice time is every day, and, of course, they can’t be asked to change their vibrant community-building behavior whatsoever, because they never have this often-repeated problem in the middle of their vibrancy, YOU need to walk on the other side of the street because YOU are not a vibrant nice-time-having community-oriented welcoming person.
Get it?
I have lived on the UWS longer than Jacob H has been alive. In the last decade or two I cannot recall whee a restaurant/ food space has blocked the street on the level of JP. Fairway comes close but nothing on the level of JP. As 2 seniors who walk by often in the evenings it is really an unpleasant obstacle. . Obviously he does not give a damn about anyone who lives in the area. Can only imagine the nightmare on the street on Columbus. I’m tired of hearing how successful restaurant is so much better than a vacant space. I choose vacant over the Pickle guy!
No.
chuckle…
Curious – how was JP permitted to have sidewalk space beyond its building?
There were always restaurants in that space before, and JP will occupy exactly the same sidewalk space, not an inch more, than its predecessors. We have to be happy local businesses thrive and expand and occupy empty commercial space. It is to the benefit of the community and the city when rent is paid on the real estate commercial property.. Vacant space sitting unused for years is the opposite.
It was a light shop before it was Jacobs Pickles
Jacob’s extends into the school yard garden.
Not OK IMO.
Not seeing how that is permissible?
You missed the point here. The comments about exceeding the space are about the current Amsterdam Avenue location.
Since the upcoming Columbus Avenue is much larger inside and out and the sidewalk is much wider, too, we hope that the new location will not repeat the problems.
LOL people. The new space has a huge patio running the length of the place
Exactly. We hope that will contain the spread. Win, win.
The current JP location extends far beyond then storefront and far into the public space of sidewalk pertaining to the garden park.
For people complaining about noise. Its nyc people. You hear noise from all over, every single day. Get over it! You should move out of the city if you dont like it. Your just a number in new york! Let people flourish and do well.
I hear a lot of noise in these comments too! 🙂
Seems to me there are a few issues, for example…
People actually live above and are entitled to sleep.
Jacobs Pickles took up far more space than its building footprint – have no idea why they were allowed?
Retail and other stores don’t get that benefit. For example, why wasn’t West Side Kids allowed to use sidewalk and street space like restaurants?
Not everything can and should be a restaurant/food place – they end up cannibalizing each other.
As for “moving” – there are still native New Yorkers here (not suburban transplants)
Am curious, where do you live? By any chance is it above or directly across from a busy night life venue with outdoor seating until 4am?
Who’s fault is that?
Wishing you the best of luck in your new endeavor. I’m too far away to visit otherwise I would if I still Lived in Manhattan
Maybe they won’t know how dirty and filthy they were found several times. Goodbye is fine with me.
2 words: GOOD RIDDANCE
Wow what a miserable bunch of people. Welcome to the neighborhood and good luck
Thank you for the update, I truly can’t wait for this restaurant to relocate uptown. Jacob’s has been an incredibly disruptive neighbor. While I can handle loud noise at night – this is New York, after all – the way they operate makes it feel like they think they’re the only ones who matter.
Delivery trucks arrive as early as 4:15am and idle until 7:30am, they use leaf blowers before 8am on weekends, and loud music starts blaring by 9am while staff sets up. On top of that, there’s a rodent problem, a hidden “C” health rating, and zero effort to be considerate of the surrounding community by taking up the sidewalk for tables and staff
I’ve never understood the continued popularity — the menu hasn’t changed in over a decade, and the portions are unnecessarily enormous. It all feels so wasteful. This move is long overdue. Ugh!
Very mediocre food
Is that the restaurant which was cited by the Health Dept? No thank you