[Photo from November by Steven]
The start of interior and exterior renovations last month at the former Percy's Tavern on the northeast corner of Avenue A and 13th prompted speculation that a new tenant was in the works for the space.
The Pizza Cowboy did a little detective work, and shared it on Instagram yesterday:
I’ve heard from five sources different parts of the same rumor — the partnership, location, and name — that El Pres, aka David Portnoy, aka THAT Portnoy of “Everybody knows the rules” Barstool Sports Pizza Reviews, is teaming up with pizza personality, chef, and consultant Nino Coniglio (of Brooklyn Pizza Crew and Williamsburg Pizza) to open a bar pie pizzeria in the former Percy’s Tavern space ...
The rumored name: Alright Frankie, a Barstool Sports catchphrase that already has its own merch line. You can read the Best Pizza NYC post for more details.
There isn't any confirmation yet on this venture, though the Brooklyn Pizza Crew shared the Instagram post in their Stories yesterday.
The space has been vacant for more than two years after Percy's closed.
In September of 2017, Community Board 3 did not approve the Late Late’s James Morrissey's application to open Honey Fitz at this address.
Updated 1:30 p.m.
Eater has more on Portnoy...
Considering Portnoy’s obsession with pizza and his claim that’d try every single pizza slice in Manhattan, a pizzeria seems like a natural fit for Portnoy’s first restaurant venture.
But whether New Yorkers will embrace him is a different story. In August, Portnoy got into a Twitter spat with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez after she called him out for threatening to fire any employee that discussed unionization efforts. He’s currently being investigated by the National Labor Relations Board over those threats. A Daily Beast report found that Portnoy has also allegedly threatened and harassed female sportswriters by making expletive-laden references to them either on the blog or on a podcast.
In addition, a rep for Nino Coniglio, the chef behind Williamsburg Pizza and Brooklyn Pizza Crew, told Eater that he is working independent of his other projects.
H/T Arthur B.!
36 comments:
Great, fratboy media brand that jokes about raping women and advocates blackout drinking meets completely mediocre pizza mini-chain. Sounds about right for the neighborhood these days.
A huge pizza place with a full liquor license? Percy's was always a noisy mess. This doesn't bode well. I smell another "destination" dump. Goodbye Baker's Pizza and Muzzarella.
A sports bar! We need more purveyors of alcohol and corporate sports!
In which universe does this part of Ave A need another pizza place and or frat bar?
I hope the upper Ave A block Association is doing something about this, if so let us know, happy to sign a petition and or email local officials.
Uuuuuuuggh.
This will be a bro-bar magnet with SantaCon levels of douchebaggery. There are nice retail spaces available in Murray Hill guys!
8:53am- North Avenue A Block Association will be keeping an eye out. These applicants aren't on the CB3 December agenda, but could be for January. There are already 7 bars on that block. We don't need and 8th.
we need retail and small business!
no, not that kind!
-commentariat
Re 10:20 retail is never going to happen due to Amazon. As for the other comments, if you don't have a liquor license there is no way to afford the costs.
AGREED---anything but another bar---having said that---the brick /mortar retail model is DEAD (for the east village)---the pricing just does not work for a store owner.......
There's an official North Avenue A Block Association? Is there a website?
The shop has been empty for 2 years and people complain about someone trying to invest into the community (god forbid). Probably the same group of people that enjoy a million dollar coffee company (shitbucks) taking over our small vibrant cafes because you can’t grasp the concept of real coffee. Like anything in this world, judge it after it actually opens....
does the EAST VILLAGE need this person to profit/be approved ?
my guess would be---NOPE !
https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-barstool-sports-culture-of-online-hate-they-treat-sexual-harassment-and-cyberbullying-as-a-game
Barstool Sports is a toxic internet brand .. If people complained about UBC Hot Girls Lounge then they should be flipping out over this !
how much damn pizza are they gonna have in that area? You got Muzzarella, Bakers, Domino's, and 7-Eleven.
That’s a weird and bad guess, 2:31 PM. I hate Starbucks and hate fratty meatheads too. Do you genuinely believe there’s something unfair or illegitimate about people forming opinions on media figures like Portnoy without having tasted the pizza yet? Why? Why shouldn’t people notice the things he says and does? It’s amazing how needy and infantile guys like you are about your poorly-chosen heroes. There are half a dozen replies to an Eater tweet about this doing the exact same thing, huffing and puffing just because not everyone shares their affection for a simple-minded, basic meathead none of you have probably even met, all totally un-self-conscious about being simpering fanboys. Ugh.
A Hooters bar with tableside mud wrestling, an open air rooftop disco and a sidewalk hookah lounge would be better than this.
That side of the block seems to attract the worst.
Makes me long for them midget dressed as a pirates serving unlimited champagne (yarrrrr)and them clueless egotistical biscuit boys.
Is there anything we can do to stop this from happening? This area is saturated with bars. It's insane on weekends.
That block has way too many bars already, and way too much noise. What ever happened to the 500' rule?
There's enough pizza in that area already without having to take a side order of misogyny and union-busting with it.
Most of the bars in the are attracts and are patronized by the Portnoys and Barstool Sports bros and their sorority hangers-on type. I guess at least this bar is open about what type of bar this would be.
I still don't get why folks from Hoboken, Jersey City, Rochester, Long Island, Westchester... would go to tot the East Village to go to a douchebar when they have plenty in their own backyard.
@MTAtoxic, the 500 foot rule has been turned on it head by the state SLA Commissioners, none of whom live anywhere near the neighborhoods they allow to be infested with this shit. The rule as originally written stated that there could be no more than three licensed establishments in that size area, and anyone else wanting to open another had to prove to both the community and the Commissioners that there was a need for their services. Starting in the 1980s, the powers that be decided they wanted as much liquor license money poured into the state coffers as possible so to hell with the rule, and they shifted the onus onto the community and the Community Boards to prove that there was NOT a need for further services. A whole crop of well-paid lawyers specializing in SLA issues sprang up, eager to fight for their clients' right to make boatloads of money while ravaging the areas they did business in, and no matter what the wishes of the community and very often, the Community Board, the state SLA rubber-stamped 99.9% of the license applications that came before them, and continue to do so. And there, in a nutshell, is why the EV and LES are such hellholes teeming with drunks, frat boys, bros and hos, and douchebags.
This is about quality of life for those who live above, next lot oud bars which most are these days due to the "stoked" patrons getting high on alcohol and sports adrenaline. As mentioned previously this is about residents having some say in what ill affects certain businesses brings to their immediate area. Restaurants with liquor licenses do not produce the noise and trash these types of bars do. If you are calling this a restaurant because they also serve pizza nobody is falling for that bs.
Again if the block association reaches out to the neighborhood there is lots of us who will support you.
Because they feel more free to bellow, shriek, sing-yell, and puke here than they do in their own neighborhoods, and if they were closer to home they wouldn’t be able to holler “I’M IN THE CITY” at whoever they’re on the phone with.
Yes! I agree with you! Its all BS...we don’t want another bar in the that small corner! We are ready to sign a petition against them!
I remember when people came to the east Village for the art, music, counterculture scene and escape the douchebagerry and brohaha that their hometown only offers.
Now witness if you will a bro's mind and body shriveling in the suburbs, a bro dying of loneliness and emptiness in his existence in his hometown. Every man put on the suburbs condemned to restlessnes, time and method of execution everyday. Perhaps this is as it should be. Case in point: Chad and Meaghan, lately graduates, a little bro and soro sistah with such a yearn to live. Beaten by their hometowns, by their own boredom, and by the scheme of things in this, moves or goes to the Twilight East Village Zone -- a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to bros. It is a dimension as vast as craft beers and as timeless as brunch. It is the middle ground between artisan and manbuns, between glass condos and banks, and it lies between the pit of a bro's fears and the summit of his dullness. This is the dimension of no imagination. It is an area which we call the East Village.
As Gojira says, the 500-foot rule has been turned on its head so that exceptions have become the rule. Virtually anything can be in the "public interest" so as to defeat the three-license limit. When there are 20 or 30 exceptions within 500 feet, you know the fix is in. I do not think it was always this way and it has certainly reached new lows with Commissioner Bradley.
I am sorry we could not do more for my old neighborhood on the legal front, maybe someone else will have more success.
I live on this block and I'm not for this place as I do feel like we have enough in the area. But I do take offense to the unfair characterizations some people on this blog make of anyone who does like a beer or a drink, does like to watch sports, does enjoy a cheeseburger and does support the existing establishments already around.
Everyone is a bro who does. And the bro's are always surrounded by - and in this woke culture I'm shocked no one ever objects to this one - hanger-on ho's. They're drunks. They're loud, they puke. I'm none of these things.
Part of me hopes the place does open and it is successful, just to add more weight around the neck of those here who feel so abused.
FROM the nys liquor authority site (issue seems to be 'existing permit/license').........
The 500 Foot Law also applies prohibits the issuance of a cabaret license if there is one existing cabaret license within 500 feet.
The 500 Foot Law excludes any licensed establishment that has been continuously licensed since the law went into effect on November 1, 1993.
A renewal of a license cannot be denied because of the 500 Foot Law. In addition, applications to approve corporate changes are not subject to the 500 Foot Law since the corporation continues to hold the license.
@2:02 PM
wow you make yourself out as a victim, your choice
@2:02pm Yeah bruh I bet you like your burgers with a side of homophobia and misogyny
So where exactly is the weak link in enforcing the (very sensible) 500' law? Seems like that person or agency needs to have a little sunshine shined on them. I'm sure the fix is in in some way or another.
@2:02 PM if you're not a bro but do enjoy pizza and beer but is offended by folks calling you a a bro, then you must be a bro, brah.
When it open a few years back the theme was a Irish tavern/pub setting the interior was nicely done reflecting that theme but it did not attract a customer base. Perhaps it was 20-30 years too late and needed to be on the north side of 14th street.
These are the times we live in. The open question is what else works?
Percy's sold in 2017 to another operator who killed the neighborhood vibe and turned it into a pseudo club at night for bridge and tunnel money, then tried it as a bbq join when it failed. A neighborhood tavern could work. Even retail could work if the landlord would be reasonable and see it as a net gain, since many folks do not want to rent a residence at Street level on a busy Avenue corner. Also, I dont think someone like a target, trader Joe's or, Macdonalds would take this spot.
This is hilarious. To blanket say that those that follow barstool sports are into misogyny and homophobia is laughable. Is it not equally as irresponsible to characterize those you do not personally know?
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