[EVG photo from December]
An applicant was on CB3's SLA committee meeting docket in January for the former Nevada Smiths space at 100 Third Ave. between East 12th Street and East 13th Street.
However, the applicant was a scratch in the weeks leading up to the meeting. There wasn't much known about the plans for the football/soccer establishment other than that the name of Bruce Caulfield appeared on a notice with the application.
Since 2003, Caulfield (with two business partners) has run the train-themed Tracks Raw Bar & Grill in the LIRR level at Penn Station. He's also a partner in Harp Raw Bar & Grill on Third Avenue near Grand Central as well as a longtime NYC business owner.
Caulfield, a former Nevada Smiths partner, is back on the agenda for the February CB3-SLA meeting along with two other familiar names — James Morrissey (The Late Late on East Houston) and Gerard McNamee (GM of Webster Hall).
Morrissey and McNamee are elsewhere on the agenda with their proposed concept for The Honey Fitz, a restaurant-cocktail bar-freelance-work space in the works for the former Hop Devil Grill and the temporarily closed Nino's Pizza storefront on St. Mark's Place and Avenue A.
The plans for the three-level Nevada Smiths space are equally ambitious. According to public documents (PDF) on the CB3 website, the proposed venture is called Vinyl, which will be a coffee house, vintage vinyl record store and bar/restaurant all under one roof...
The record store will pay homage to Irish rock band Thin Lizzy... the record store and cafe would open daily at 10 a.m. ... with the bar/food starting at noon, with proposed closing hours of 4 a.m.
[Screenshots via the CB3 website]
The proposal also calls for "poetry & spoken word cultural events." No word on what will become of the 20 Plasma TVs and two life-size projection screens that arrived with the new Nevada Smiths, which opened here in April 2013. Nevada Smiths never reopened after the Marshal took legal possession of the business last September.
You can read the comprehensive questionnaire for Vinyl at the CB3 website. (PDF here.)
The SLA committee meeting is Feb. 16 at 6:30 p.m. in the CB3 office, 59 E. Fourth St. between Second Avenue and the Bowery.
Previously on EV Grieve:
Nevada Smiths is closed, and here's what's next
Those persistent rumors about 74-76 Third Avenue and the future of Nevada Smiths
The East Village will lose a parking lot and gain an apartment building
Here then, where Nevada Smiths once stood
The Marshal seizes Nevada Smiths on 3rd Avenue
[Updated] New life for the Nevada Smiths space on 3rd Avenue
Who's the target audience, Irish junkies in their 60s and 70s? I loved Thin Lizzy in the day, and at times still spontaneously howl a rendition of Whiskey in the Jar while I'm washing the dishes, but this is without a doubt the most specific and puzzling business concept I think I've ever seen.
ReplyDeleteThey're going to run into trouble with Hell's Kitchen mainstay Vynl, no?
ReplyDeleteAlso, if I had to explain just yesterday to a late-thirtysomething musician who Harry Belafonte is, I think we can assume that the NYU-centric crowds of Nevada Smith's are not exactly going to be Phil Lynott aficionados.
To think, to name, and shape a huge venture all around the band who gave us, "The Boys are Back in Town"? Ha! Dying. This is rich.
ReplyDeleteIt is a real shame Nevada Smith's eyes got bigger than their belly. The old venue was lovely, and although there are premier league matches on everywhere not many show the french, italian, and spanish leagues.
They might want to talk to the Cake Shop owners how the record store/coffee shop/booze thing works out.
ReplyDelete11:43: I wouldn't too much about it. The record store here is merely for decoration. The clientele at this place could care less about Thin Lizzy, and even less about buying records.
ReplyDeleteThe mind reels at trying to absorb what these well-known business men are really trying to do with this space. The vinyl record store part sounds like a common on. Does this part of the East Village lack enough coffee shops with free wifi where budding screen writers can set themselves up at a table at 7:30 AM and write for as long as they can drink coffee? No, this project sounds like a multi-level bar and perhaps dance spot. I've long ago felt that community pressure is not enough to stop such slight of hand attempts to fool people (and make no mistake these established business people have strong support on the local community board). The only salvation from such projects is (and I know how this sounds) if NYU and the New School decide that enough is enough. They are the real power centers in this part of the East Village.
ReplyDeleteBring back CBGB.
ReplyDeletenyu mostly cares about their students in the west village
ReplyDeleteand all of their real estate everywhere
Because Webster Hall isn't enough in this nabe? Just what we don't need: another drunk-ateria masquerading as something else.
ReplyDeleteThe reality: let's jam 'em in so it's impossible for a sober person to run errands on that side of Third Avenue without having to run the gantlet of drunken idiots all day & night.
Where are our "elected officials" when it comes to our neighborhood being trashed in this ongoing way? Maybe NYC could just pay me $$$ to move to a place that is NOT a drunkards' playground, b/c this nabe was NOT a drunkards' playground when I moved in, and I resent being made to feel like an unwelcome freak on my own turf.