Northern Spy decided to close this past February after six years of serving seasonal menu items with locally sourced ingredients.
The owners said that "2015 was a tough year and we did not manage to pull the nose up to restore the flight altitude we once enjoyed. We're hanging it up while we still have the buttons on our pants."
While we haven't spotted any for lease signs, the space at 511 E. 12th St. is on the market. The Eastern Consolidated listing notes that the rent is $6,400 for 2,000 square feet (1,000 of it is the basement). There is also an additional $225,000 in key money.
There's not much other information, other than that the address features a "fully built out restaurant" with a full liquor license. The restaurant received a full liquor license last fall. (They had been turned down for full liquor starting in 2010... and in April 2012)
On April 16-17, the space served as a pop-up burger joint for Fleishers Craft Butchery, operated by one of Northern Spy's former owners.
17 comments:
What a joke. We held them off for a full liquor license for years but then they cried and whined to the community board about how they were not making as much profit as they hoped for because they were not a hip new place anymore. The block association did not support the upgrade.
Shortly after they got their full liquor license they closed. It's called an exit stragy worth $225,000. I will not support this bulk asset sale and I don't think the community board will either. Goodbye and good riddance.
I live on this block and I have to say I am really pissed off at this place. True I have never seen their books but this place was always busy as in customers blocking the sidewalks on weekends waiting for a table. The liquor license application was not met with opposition on the block because this restaurant was a good neighbor and clients were not roady and loud. Any hint of a bar opening here will be meet with vocal opposition from its neighbors.
Poor Northern Spy- dupes the neighborhood, gets a full liquor license, then skips town with a bundle of cash. Nice work if you can get it.
This is the why residents need to show up at the community board or send letters in opposition of full liquor licenses. You see what happens. There are just too many full liquor licenses and then it remains that way in perpetuity because it's an asset. It only pushes out good long time local businesses that we want by creating more competition for them. It adds to crowds, bridge and tunnel, tourists and the escalating number of people who live here now. It's too much. We need to stop this for the sake of the neighborhood.
People think what's the big deal, beer and wine or full liquor. This is a good example, if you don't understand. Residents on the block did oppose this.
Does this block E 12th still have a block association or something like that? I would join if I knew how.
Liquor licenses should not be held in perpetuity. It should not be passed on and/or sold to the next tenant of a location.
Never like Northern Spy. Their customers treated the residents going on by doing their day-to-day errands as part of the attraction of the restaurant.
It's bad enough that we are tortured by Doublewide a few doors down. If a bar opens in Northern Spy, I am going to pull my hair out. I can't be the only person on the block who can't sleep.
I was reading the CB3 minutes, and they cited as reasons for approving a full liquor license for Northern Spy that they helped out during Hurricane Sandy, and that there was significant community support for the restaurant (a petition with 49 names, 6 letters of support, and 4 residents who spoke on its behalf). In one of the applications is a letter from Trinity Lutheran Church in support of the license, citing the good works and character of Chris Roris. I don't understand the relevancy of Chris's charitable works. Is a liquor license an earthly reward, prior to Chris receiving his heavenly crowns? What motivates a resident to support a liquor license, and what do they say at the meeting? I love the beet salad there, but I can't enjoy it without a couple of shots of vodka...
There is a block association. Stop by the garden and ask for Alexis.
I have been to CB3 meetings in my neighborhood for problems on our block. I went after having 15 years of sheer hell and torture from a bar that - wait for it - never had a liquor license to be a bar- they stated to the SLA that their business would be a full service restaurant. That said, it took 4.5 hours to get to our case. We arrived at 6pm and weren't even heard until 11 or 11:30. This is why it's hard to get people to go to the meetings. Unless you are driven to the absolute end of your sanity who has time to go and sit there for five hours to be heard. The people that come in favor are no doubt paid. That said the CB3 has been clamping down HARD on giving out full liquor licenses. The cops have also informed us that there are only about 4-5 squad cars every week to handle the thousands that descend on this neighborhood to party.
I am one of the block residents that spoke on their behalf. Chris told me they had no intention to leave, that they needed the money made on liquor, etc, etc. I feel like an A-1 ass.
An older, wiser neighbor tried to dissuade me from my support, I did not listen. I really trusted both Chris and Kristoff.
I feel like I need to pay a fine in time-of attending community board meetings and writing to SLA against key trading.
I am so sorry neighbors.
Sarah
Clamp down hard? Not at all, which is how northern spy got there's. It will be nearly impossible to stop the next ones who come open a phony restaurant (i.e. a bar) no matter how pissed off all the suckers of 12th St are about being duped because their friends gave out their rotting, leftover food during Sandy. They refused to listen and because all the drunks from the block stood up for them, they got the license. One at a time every store front will prevail with a bar because of the idiocy of the people who think they know better. They are the same people who think Trump will turn "presidential."
Kudos to Sarah at 10:51 PM.
"There is a block association. Stop by the garden and ask for Alexis."
Which garden is that, there are 2 on our block?
Wow. So not one of you commenters believe that they tried to get their liquor license for actual business reasons?
Here's an alternate storyline to your widely accepted conspiracy theory:
The owners of Northern Spy, who are good neighbors by most accounts, we're not hitting the business targets they needed to to stay open. They finally got their license (after trying since 2010...that's 6 years) but the business did not pick up as much as they were hoping it would and they had to close the doors. So they sold it.
Sounds pretty natural.
People, the restaurant business is hard. Even harder with the rents that landlords are charging. Are you all suggesting that they had a six-year exit strategy of getting a license and then selling the business? That they slogged it out since 2010 just to get one over on you all?
You all are paranoid delusionals on EVG sometimes. What kind of business would be "approved for the neighborhood" by you? A cobbler? A candlestick maker? It's 2016, rents are high and the restaurant business is very hard...but easier than the olde timey fish monger or community shoe repair shops or whatever I see as examples here on what kind of business the neighborhood "needs"
To educate yourself in the world of east village business and how to make it (and how not to),
I suggest you "be the change you want to see" in the EV. And then come back and lose it over someone closing down.
Yeah they all reach out to the churches or support the arts to get in. Look, just no more it's a game. It's just if you've had personal experience with a bar or restaurant it's humiliating and you don't understand until it happens to you. We have long time residents that are really suffering with backyard dining and all night partying. There are seniors around here that are being bullied by landlords and bar/restaurant owners.
We need to cool it down. The proliferation of bars and restaurnts is just bad for the neighborhood. They cater to tourists, airbnb and morons.
The nightlife people say it's always been like this, which is not true and they try to paint residents as being anti nightlife which is not true. Nobody ever said no nightlife, it's just that it's too much of this shit.
This one woman from avenue B showed up at the CB for a restaurant that wanted to open at a prior location which devastated the block. She is actually in nightlife and supports everything else just as long as it isn't on her block. It's ok for her friend to have a bar with a backyard and it's ok for her them to support the worst landlord/lounge owner/commercial broker/patron of the art sociopath.
@ 940 am, no we don't believe you Chris. Nobody forces people to open a bar or restaurant in the hood and pay these crazy rents so excuse me if I don't pity them. Before ever opposing a liquor license residents meet with the applicants and warn them of how many places fail and their arrogance gets in the way. But why would we know we have only lived here for decades. Do I believe they slogged it out for years to cash out with full liquor no, but do I believe they made their most recent attempt as an exit strategy, absolutely.
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