LuxuryBlurb
Posts Tagged ‘Eataly’
Friday, February 1st, 2013
 Posted by Leonard Steinberg on February 1st, 2013
A Water main has burst at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Broadway in front of EATALY and Madison Square Park. There is no N, R, or Q subway service at this time between Whitehall Street station and 57th Street station, at Seventh Avenue. The 36 inch main broke around 10 a.m. at 23rd and Broadway and is impacting subway service at the 23rd Street station.
The MTA says R trains are running on the F line between the 36th Street station in Queens and the 34th Street-Herald Square station, then run on the D line in both directions between the 34th Street-Herald Square station and the DeKalb Avenue station. The break has caused extensive flooding in the area and traffic is a MESS. Water supply has also been cut off to a large chunk of Downtown New York.
Is global warming to blame? The New York Metro area has seen a wild swing of temperatures over the last few days with highs yesterday at around 60 degrees and dropping near freezing over the last 24-hours. There is no word if the weather played any role in the break but we should remember how old Manhattans infrastructure is before we blame global warming for all disasters!
Monday, March 19th, 2012
  Posted by Leonard Steinberg on March 19th, 2012
Foragers City Grocer has opened in West Chelsea! And what a great addition to the area it is, certainly a welcome respite from the vulgar Gristede’s on Ninth Avenue and the rather generic Whole Foods on Seventh Avenue. It’s a high-quality market, somewhat similar to a Citarella or Balducci’s, but with much of the produce locally sourced and organic, as well as a fish counter that follows the sustainability guidelines of the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It will also feature an old-fashioned butcher with an aging room. Its eggs — duck and goose in addition to hen — will be delivered to the store within 24 hours of being laid. Small upstate farms are providing the milk products. Cheeses will be American-made, and not the usual supermarket brands.
The space is a super-cool glass enclosed street front with warm woods, white tiles and concrete flooring. It’s a more contemporary, more compacted (and humanly scaled) version of EATALY. Fewer tourists too!
An adjacent wine shop, Foragers City Wine, features wines from small producers, often organic or biodynamic. And Foragers City Table, a 36-seat restaurant along the 22nd Street side of the market, will open this week. The chef, Douglas Monsalud, who worked in San Francisco and Napa Valley, will add some Asian touches to a farm-fresh agenda. He is also in charge of the market’s prepared foods, including rotisserie meats.
The owners — Anna Castellani, her husband, Richard Lamb, and their partner, Clifford Shikler, follow a decided “do-it-yourself” philosophy. Ms. Castellani said “We are attempting something most groceries would never attempt.”
Ms. Castellani and Mr. Lamb have a 28-acre farm in Columbia County where they are growing produce and will soon have eggs from their own flock of hens. They also deal directly with other farmers in the region. The market is a no-frills affair, very basic but with good lighting and some sleek wood paneling.
So think of Foragers as a 7 day per week Union Square Market in Chelsea.
Located on the South West corner of Eighth Avenue and 22nd Street at 300 West 22nd Street, Tel: (212) 243-8888, is open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Neighborhood delivery is available.
Saturday, February 25th, 2012
 Posted by Leonard Steinberg on February 24th, 2012
Location, location, location, the first three most important rules for the best real estate and yes, this rule even applies in politics! Mitt Romney learned this painful lesson yesterday while delivering a speech in Detroit to a group of 1,000….in Ford Field, an arena that can hold 65,000 people. 64,000 empty seats never looks good for an event. Wrong location!
Yet again, the right location is everything. I hear this same message from other groups too:
RETAILERS: They always prefer being on the East side of a North-West flowing street….why? Shoppers tend to come out later in the day as the sun is overhead and heading west. That leaves the east side of the street sunny and cheerful….and more attractive to shoppers, especially for smaller retailers.
RESTAURANTS: Most restaurants rely surprisngly heavily on walk-in traffic: No walk in traffic, and the chances of paying sky-high rents and making a profit are tough.
ART GALLERIES: While there are a few that like to exist on their own, separated, the majority like to be clustered. This makes life for art buyers, critics and viewers more convenient, and it also maximizes exposure, especially if you are aq newer gallery with less of a following.
FOOD STORES: If you want to know where neighborhoods are gentrifying with almost certainty, look out for a Whole Foods. They spend big bucks analyzing trends, building permits, transportation, street traffic, pedestrian traffic, etc to locate their stores in the most prominent up-and-coming neighborhoods……anaylisis you don’t have to pay for! Remember Houston and the Bowery before Whole Foods came along? Or how south of Chambers Street in Tribeca was poo-pooed….till that Whole Foods opened at 101 Warren Street….and all of a sudden that location became prime! So will a Whole Foods go into the West Chelsea 28th Street and Eleventh Avenue site? It certainly makes sense with the Highline Park, Hudson Yards, The Americano Hotel, a new subway stop at 34th Street and 11th Avenue, not to mention the thousands of new homeowners and renters that have moved there recently…. I used to live at 225 Fifth Avenue and every morning and evening I would see hundreds of tourists at Madison Square Park wondering around staring at the Flatiron and Empire State buildings…..the owners of EATALY must have seen what I saw!
Super-cool boutique hotels and restaurants can have the same effect….think the ACE HOTEL. Around the corner a new Starbucks just opened….
Leonard Steinberg says: Good location has everything to do with simple, common sense and nature: Have you ever tried planting sun-loving flowers in a shady spot?
Monday, January 16th, 2012
 Posted by Leonard Steinberg on January 16th, 2012
Holiday retail foot traffic in New York grew at an impressive rate of 4,7% in 2011 compared to the rest of the USA that saw foot traffic drop off by 3,1%. This is mostly attributed to strong tourist activity……regardless, this is very good news indeed and impacts both commercial and residential real estate in a positive way.
It is further proof that New York as a city delivers a superior retail experience: while every major city in the USA has an Hermes, Prada and Gucci store, only New York can boast a Bergdorf Goodman, Jeffrey and Eataly. Aside from the unique, smaller specialized stores, the variety is what makes New York retail so incredibly enticing. For international visitors, great retail mixed with great culture, food and competitive pricing is a strong recipe for success. While the obvious ‘big names’ draw crowds for sure, areas like the East Village, Nolita, Bleecker Street and the Meatpacking District deliver some more unique retail experiences mixed in with the usual suspects.
If there is one area that is missing out on a strong retail presence, it is West Chelsea. What on earth are all those thousands of Highline visitors tempted by beyond the typical Rite Aid mix? Not all of them can afford to pick up an item at Gagosian surely? In between there are rumblings of some good retail, but you have to walk over to the Meatpacking District for some retail satisfaction. Residential neighborhoods need to be careful not to alienate the critical retail that makes a neighborhood thrive by over-pricing their retail and converting all areas into a big mall. Humans need cleaners, shoe repair, tech stores, florists, coffee shops, magazine stands, etc. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every new building had some of these important neighborhood assets mixed into their amenity packages?
Thursday, September 2nd, 2010
  Yesterday I visited EATALY for the first time, the new food emporium of Mario Batali…..what an experience! The line at the front door was the reminiscent of Studio 54: who would be chic enough to get past that velvet rope from a line stretched around onto 5th Avenue? I had to negotiate hard, explaining a friend was inside seated at a table waiting for me. That explanation was not good enough. I put on my svelte sunglasses and pretended to be uber-chic….that helped.
Inside was a truly cavernous melange of incredible displays of every imaginable food type….fresh fish, vegetables, ice cream, books, wine….EVERYTHING ITALIAN. The presentation is beautiful, although a bit chaotic with the drones of people everywhere. For anyone on vacation its a dream come true. For anyone wanting a gastronomic escape on a rainy day, its amazing. Real Estate wise it fuels the neighborhood around Madison Square Park to the point where I would estimate values will rise 5%….easily. The service is super-slow, almost bad, but this is to be expected at the very beginning. they had better work on it hard before they lose repeat business though.
Leonard Steinberg, managing director of Prudential Douglas Elliman and author of the LUXURYLETTER says: “Overall it’s a winner!”
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I read an article that Batali considers this not a food court but a temple/shrine to Italian food. Love the idea of a raw beef “sushi” bar and tasting portions in this lavish and crowded grocery store/temple. The only restaurant that takes reservations, Manzo is also in this open hectic setting and moderately expensive. But this unique space is truly amazing and beautiful.