Monday, October 12, 2015

3 new retail tenants for 51 Astor Place: Bluestone Lane Coffee, Chop’t and Flywheel Sports


[EVG file photo]

Here's the news via the EVG inbox...

SRS Real Estate Partners announces the signing of three retail transactions at Edward J. Minskoff’s 51 Astor Place. Leases were recently executed with “best in class” operators Bluestone Lane Coffee, Chop’t Creative Salad Company and Flywheel Sports.

These three tenants join CVS at the building, further transforming the Astor Place streetscape and enhancing the amenities for the office tenants and surrounding neighborhood. Only one retail space remains in the 400,000 SF Fumihiko Maki-designed tower.

Here's more about Bluestone Lane Coffee, which has five Manhattan locations:

Bluestone Lane offers a refined product proposition dedicated to producing the highest quality coffee and complimentary foods, delivered in an engaging way. We are focused on creating environments where customers are immersed in the experience and leave feeling like a local.

Bluestone Lane Coffee is influenced from the renowned coffee culture hub of Melbourne, Australia, where premium coffee is a way of life.

40 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Bluestone Lane offers a refined product proposition dedicated to producing the highest quality coffee and complimentary foods, delivered in an engaging way."

Isn't that some verbal diarrhea. And give me a break with creating an "experience" and a "Way of life", you're selling goddamn coffee, and that's it.

Anonymous said...

Leave feeling "like a local" of where? NYC? Melbourne? The mall? Also nothing says midtown office zombie culture hits the EV like Chop't eew

Philip Treviño said...

Maybe they give coffee enemas in the backroom.

blue glass said...

anonymous 11:24 you left out

Bluestone Lane offers a refined product proposition dedicated to producing the highest quality coffee and complimentary foods, delivered in an engaging way. We are focused on creating environments where customers are immersed in the experience and leave feeling like a local. ????

do you look different when you leave? or is it just that your wallet is lighter?

Anonymous said...

Know what would make me feel like a local? Local mom and pop shops and not chain stores with misguided copywriters.

Anonymous said...

Remember the good old days Starbucks Junkies sitting around for hours after visiting the "program" mooching money for a coffee or just nodding out in plain sight

Anonymous said...

I live in Montreal. It is a six hour drive to NYC. If I was offered a free ticket I wouldn't waste the time there. Nothing there.

Anonymous said...

Nothing but know nothing transplants will eat this nasty poisonous food. Chained zombies eating chain food. NYC visitors, don't come here you can get the same garbage at home.

Anonymous said...

@1:02pm: Amen.

Giovanni said...

Bluestone Lane is such a coffee expert and they don't even know how to spell "roaster" on their menu? Or is that an Australian thing?

Melbourne coffee rosters NICCOLO coffee (Espresso blend)
West Coast coffee rosters SIGHTGLASS coffee (Hot and Cold Brew)


Anonymous said...

I've never heard of any of these companies so therefore I must be TOO local.

bowboy said...

I seem to be missing the upscaling plan for this Midtown South. First, there's a cheapo Kmart and some coffeeshops, so let's add a pharmacy/convenience store, a salad bar, and another coffeeshop -- is that making the area nicer? More like the old 14th Street -- gray goods at white prices. Sure to be a lonely Astor Place until the skateboarders return.

Anonymous said...

Face it--forget about mom and pop stores--at least not in this section of the EV. That's a mantra that will not be realized ever again I would think. Kmart has been in its Astor Place location for at least 10-15 years (it was a Department of Motor Vehicles office so something like it before Kmart arrived). So Kmart isn't part of the "revival" of this area. Face it, if you are near two major subway lines, and at the end of a major bus line, you are eventually going to be sought out as an area for development. I guess we could hope for Prada, Hermes, or Ferrari shoppes in the Astor Place building. I love window shopping. Don't get stressed out, the shops coming into the building are not counting on your patronage.

Anonymous said...

I encourage you all to visit my hip new Midtown South blog, which is going to be way cooler than this smelly old blog filled with wimpy whiners who aren't sophisticated enough to appreciate refined product propositions delivered in engaging ways.

And the "o" in roster is a long "o" so the "a" is redundant. Everyone who is anybody knows these things.

Anonymous said...

I prefer rasta coffee. You wake up with a buzz that makes local a state of mind.

Anonymous said...

"leave feeling like a local"

yea.. come have a cup of coffee at some overpriced generic hipster spot in the East Village.. now you're a local! this pretty much sums up the recent transplant gentrifier mindset in a nutshell. They moved here 1 year ago and already claim NYC as theirs. "I'm a NYer!" says the midwestern sorority chick who moved here 1 year ago, yet doesn't know or care to know any of the history of the neighborhood she's invaded or the native locals.

"Im a NYer!" she claims proudly as she and her suburban mall friends incessantly demand the DJ at the local dive bar play the new Taylor Swift song during his all vinyl 80's punk set.

In this vomit-inducing Disney-fied version of the Big Apple it's become all too easy for any half-assed poser to claim NY as theirs. it seems like EVERYONE is a NYer now. At least in the 70s and 80s the rough grit and crime kept the entitlement yuppie brats and fair-weather city dwellers out.

Anonymous said...

Can Blueballs Coffee explain in further detail how drinking coffee from Australia will make me feel like a local? Dingo took that logic!

Anonymous said...

Nope, I'm not buying into coffee "influenced from the renowned coffee culture hub of Melbourne ... where premium coffee is a way of life". Seriously, why would anyone want to do what's trendy in Melbourne, Australia? Unless you're IN Melbourne, that is!

I have to assume that premium coffee is a "way of life" there b/c they don't have anything more interesting to spend their time on. Fortunately, there's still way more to do in NYC than drinking coffee from the southern hemisphere.

Anonymous said...

And Chop't? Have one next to my office. Tasteless, precut food for people that don't want to bother chewing. These chopped food places are taking over. Seems these new "hipsters" want everything done for them, including cutting and chewing food, as Chop't, Fresh & Co, every place with "bowls," coffee shops and juice bars proliferate. Except, of course, when they want their hamburgers on chocolate donuts and other foods that push the envelope of "new."

cmarrtyy said...

Why worry about any of these shops. They will all be gone after a year. Too pricey for the hood.

DrGecko said...

Australian friend inform me that the coffee culture of Melbourne is about as renowned as the coffee culture of Indianapolis.

Anonymous said...

Montreal bagels, Philadelphia burgers, Melbourne coffee, Korean cafes. And these are just EVG stories over the last week. We are losing our NYC culture! Back in my day, people came here from all over, same as now. But in those days you came here and tried to fit in, tried to be New York. Now everyone's coming over and decorating the place in their dorky home colors. I guess it's becoming a kind of melting pot again. I mean have you heard, we got Chick-Fil-a now. #merica

Anonymous said...

Ok native New Yorker here, just curious:

I read ALOT of people bemoaning the mallification, homogenization, x-tion of the East Village, but riddle me this:

WHERE ARE ALL YOU COMPLAINERS IN THE EAST VILLAGE ON A FRIDAY OR SATURDAY NIGHT? Outside of your home there (for those who live there)? Not crying in your beer about how it isn't like it used to be at your favorite longtime watering hole (my guess Mona's, Manitoba's, or 7B all on Avenue B)? Nowhere!

I see a pride of bro-lions and a gaggle of she-bro geese parading down the Bowery, St.Mark's Place etc. but where's say 15 to 20 people who were around before 2000 marching down the street as well? Where are the people I saw around in the '80s and '90s? Again, nowhere! The EV is so takeoverable it's laughable.

Anonymous said...

SO sick of these outsiders selling "authenticity" to the neighborhood. Do us a favor and stay away.

Anonymous said...

@1:39 That's right, there's absolutely nothing or none one that wants you here. Please stay in Montreal.

Anonymous said...

@11:52pm: Oh come on! On a Friday night I - who have lived here since the previous century, literally - am coming home from work and then likely getting laundry done. On Saturday night, I'm out for dinner at a local restaurant and home by 10pm latest. Why would I be "parading" down any street or avenue? For what purpose?

The frat-babies and their vapid "girls" seem to exist only to party. Where do they go during working hours?

Anonymous said...

Amazed by the negativity here. Things change. I grew up here and have lived almost my entire life. The barrage of comments about things changing has been going on since the Virgin Megastore opened in Union Square in 1998. If you don't like it don't support the businesses or move away. The city is different now than it was 10 - 20 - 40 years ago and will be different 10 years from now.

I mean the person complaining about how Chopt is for people that don't want to chew their food. Are you even serious? You have the be one of the most miserable people I've ever seen post here.

The world is changing. The city is changing. Time moves forward. You don't have to like it, but at least embrace it. A little.

Anonymous said...

Yeah you guys, ease up on Chop't. You made anon@10:18 sad.

Anonymous said...

Yeah haters. How can you hate salad?! It's green. And from the earth. And not black like your soul. And how can you hate change? Especially predictable corporate experiences?! They know what we want. Chopped salad and kangaroo coffee. Why do you hate wallabies? And dingos? So much much hate. Call PETA! Haters.

Anonymous said...

As a Los Angeles transplant, who has lived in NYC for fifteen years, our city has changed. No doubt. Instead of lamenting on the loss of what was once an edgy, seedy part of town, why not embrace how change has enhanced it in terms of safety and amenities. After all these years, after all the changes before us, millions of people still want to live here. As the years pass, we can't have our cake and eat it too. We must try to adapt to what is happening around us, whether one approves or not. Yes, NYC isn't what it was in 2000. Or even in 1995. But what city is? None of us can live in the past or wish for something that is now forever gone. Negative commenters don't achieve anything by lashing out toward one another. On a personal note, I do miss the "old NYC", especially in the 90's before I moved here in 2000. Fuck, I miss it in the early 2000's before the greedy landlords and business developers devoured the once vibrant, unique areas we long for. But nothing can be done. Either we continue to live here or choose to move elsewhere. No matter what you decide, there is still nothing like NYC, nor will there ever be.

NOTORIOUS said...

Having just spent the weekend in Cambridge, MA where I grew up, I felt really disconnected to the city when I came back. It's current incarnation is so crass, so chain and brand orientated, and filled with the most obnoxious, self-absorbed people that it wasn't until I was outside of it a bit that I realized how bad it is. I've lived here for almost 20 years and to be honest, I think I'm at the point where I can check NYC off my list and move to some place cheaper and less hostile. If people think NYC in 2015 is an awesome place, more power to them, but to someone who's seen it better, it's pretty fucking awful.

Paul Blart said...

Anyone know if they've hired a security guard? My Segway is charged.

Anonymous said...

Even the haters have haters here.

Giovanni said...

If you haters hate Chop't, then you're really going to hate Just Lettuce. All they serve is lettuce. That's it. No sandwiches or deli meat, no bread, nothing, just green leafy lettuce. Organic, locally sourced, GMO-free artisanal lettuce. They don't have plates either, you eat it with your hands. Or tables, so you have to eat it standing up. They don't chew the food for you, so you'll just have to chew it yourself. And they don't have bags, so if you want that lettuce to go you just have to carry it in your hands, or bring a bag of your own. Love it or hate it, that's all they've got to offer. Just Lettuce.

Anonymous said...

Downtown NYC often feels like somewhere in the burbs. Sad. But true. No matter where you are, most things resemble one another. Aside from the film, Midnight in Paris, there should be a Midnight in Manhattan, where people time travel to NY during a time that was exciting and spectacular. Oh well.

Anonymous said...

Much like the film, Midnight in Paris, what if there was a film called, Midnight in NY, where nostalgic people are taken back during a time of excitement and edge. Wishful thinking...

Anonymous said...

Hey 10:18am how 'bout YOU move away? I will not. Just because I don't like something doesn't mean I have to "move away" so fuck off with your it started when Virgin Megastore opened in '98 jive. Yeah, 1998, when this area started to become wack, boring, and full of mallrats like you, cuz only a mallrat would be cool with or in your case indifferent to businesses which made the EV an interesting, dynamic, creative, artistic place closing down and being replaced by chain stores.

Anonymous said...

Thank god we wil have a CVS across from Walgreens, and a Bluestone Lane Coffee across from Starbucks.

Anonymous said...

Wow, didn't know real New Yorkers were such whiners. I don't really care what "vibe" it has, I'd just like a good cup of coffee. Stumptown, Blue Bottle, Bluestone Lane, Starbucks - bring it on.

blue glass said...

when k-mart first opened they had a terrible "cafe" with awful coffee and a stupendous view of astor place. you could look out at the corner on a snowy day or night and be anywhere you wanted to be. chase was not there yet and the corner was light and airy.

11:52 - where are you on a friday or saturday night when every place is full of loud throngs of tourists and suburban kids out to get drunk?

i have no desire to compete for space with these inconsiderate fools.