[Photo from Aug. 22]
Several readers have noted activity at the currently closed Mermaid Inn on Second Avenue... workers were spotted removing equipment from the casual seafood restaurant here between Fifth Street and Sixth Street.
The interior is now empty...
The East Village location is no longer on the Mermaid Inn's website; the phone is not in service. Mermaid Inn reps did not respond to requests for information about the Second Avenue outpost. Three other Mermaid Inn locations are currently open.
The Mermaid Inn arrived in the East Village back in 2003.
Updated:
As we were writing this up yesterday Eater confirmed the closure.
Co-owner Daniel Abrams and partner Cindy Smith decided to close the restaurant in the wake of failed attempts to reach a workable rent deal with the location's landlord amid the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.
"The situation is untenable," Abrams says in a phone interview. "The PPP has run out. There's no money to pay landlords. We go to landlords like beggars hoping they'll give us a handout."
Abrams also wrote an open farewell letter, which includes this passage:
We are sharing this information to illustrate what ONE SINGLE RESTAURANT adds to its community and to the city. Many restaurants have closed since COVID and many more will close as the pandemic continues. The ripple effect will be incalculable.
Over the years The Mermaid Inn on Second Ave has:
• Welcomed over 850,000 guests
• Paid over $15M in wages to our more than 3000 employees who have spent Ime with us
• Contributed more than $2.1M in taxes to the city, the state, Medicare, SS, UI, etc
• Sent in excess of 4M in Sales Tax to NYS
• Paid over 15M to our hundreds of hard working vendors
• Given hundreds of thousands of dollars to the city and state for permits, licenses, etc
We are providing these numbers to show the effect the closing of a SINGLE restaurant has. Now mulIply that by THOUSANDS of NYC restaurants closing. The loss of opportunity for employees, the loss of income for city, state and local governments, the loss of sales to our fish companies, our vegetable company, the linen company, even the company that comes to take our used oyster shells or our discarded grease. If we don’t pay them, they do not pay their employees and so on and so on. The chain is never ending.
29 comments:
So sad. Why do both our Governor and Mayor continue to act like restaurants and bars will miraculously survive this continued shut down? There is no argument for not experimenting with indoor dining now that we've seen success in both Long Island and Westchester. Obviously a bail out of small businesses, particularly bars and restaurants needs to happen as well.
Connecticut, Westchester, upstate NY and LI have had indoor dining for months now. NJ is now also opening its indoor dining. Blasio is saying wait till June 2021. No one is going to eat outside in the winter. All the remaining restaurants will close.
one critical number is missing: how much did you pay your landlord all these years? that's the scary number.
Responding to 7:13 am
I think the primary concern is the upcoming flu season paired with the pandemic itself, with no vaccine in sight, not to mention the the throng of many establishments not complying towards public mandates and ordinances. We've seen the foot traffic of our neighborhood here with numerous patrons not giving an F about social distancing or wearing masks; the businesses whom lost their liquor licenses also contribute to the overall problem of complacency and distrust at large. This industry is a large pool to swim in ensuring no one drowns. I spent over fifteen years in it as a waiter in Manhattan. Opening up in NYC is different than others. Most spaces are compact. Even if you were to open, you would have quite a reduced rate of occupancy. There are more risks here. I don't know how staff are making adequate money now given the limitations of guests and rounds of multiple seatings. My heart breaks for the owners who are rationing rent, staff pay, food expenses and taxes. What a headache. When November arrives, it will be quite chilly. Who wants to sit outside shivering as they eat their meal?? Not me! Maybe there is something else both the governor and mayor can agree on which is amenable to all parties involved? I see both sides of the argument. It really sucks. Unless there is a significant stimulus package to assist merchants during this terrible time, I foresee a deluge of more places closing. As I write this, the more adamant I feel about the looming demand for the resignation for DeBlassio who has failed us for years. His lack of leadership, intuition and sincerity is breathtaking including the craven actions of his wife who somehow managed to lose millions of dollars that were never recovered. Perhaps if we had someone who cares about our city and its residents, and who actually does the job he so wanted, and was elected to do, we wouldn't be facing so much angst and revolt.
RIP Mermaid Inn :( I'll miss your shrimp scampi and chocolate pudding at the end of the meal.
On NY1 this morning they put up a map showing New York State, Long Island, and NJ all highlighted in green, meaning they were open (or are about to be) for modified, sensible indoor dining. And there, plopped in the midst of them like a morose Cthulhu, was a blue blob representing the five boroughs of the city, where no indoor dining is possible, or indeed planned for many months to come. This is absolute insanity, and the proprietors of the Mermaid inn need to send that letter to both our clueless tool of a mayor and the dictator in Albany.
Sobering.
I hate to see any thriving business close up in the EV...another empty store front that will stay empty for a long time...but honestly, the food quality has been slipping year after year...in that sense, no loss.
Why would there be a stimulus package? The rest of NY state ,CT and soon Philly and NJ will have indoor dining. This is on the city and state. News flash- many other states are fully open and aren't having problems. There is no data or logic or science involved here. Either open now or accept the consequences
Landlords kill everything.
I hate this. I absolutely hate it. But indoor dining in NYC is the absolute dryest tinder for the next wave of infection. (Sorry, an upstate Red Lobster is nothing in terms of density and volume compared to your average East Village bar.) If other states had gotten their stuff together like grown-ups, this wouldn't be necessary. If the federal government had supported businesses as if it believed it had some kind of responsibility for governing, this wouldn't be happening to such an extent, either. I do hope that after school has reopened, hopefully without a spike, that the US will be in a condition where indoor dining can be tried here.
Commercial tenants like restaurants should be joining with residential tenants in their buildings to push for rent cancellation. Every truly 'mom and pop' place should be out in front of the movement against the continued emptying of the city by these real estate holding company leeches, instead of demanding that Albany allow them to put their employees in harm's way.
I am so sad
Other states? Florida has more people than NY State. They have around 11,000 deaths. NY State has almost 33,000. NYC has 5x as many deaths as LA county even though LA county has over 10 million residents Other states aren't the issue. The mayor and governor are the issue.
If you want to tie reopening indoor dining to how well school children can behave you're as crazy as de Blasio.
Phew, EV Grieve sure does attract a surprising number of bloodthirsty investors.
I'm not sure whether you're so simple as to think overall absolute death counts count so much in deciding how to set current-day policy as opposed to ongoing infection rates, or whether you think the rest of us are, but either way, you're embarrassing yourself. Stop it. If Florida had shut down, it wouldn't be anywhere near 11,000 deaths now. So many of these deaths in other parts of the country--attributable to people like you who see no reason that capitalism should be slowed down by an additional 1500 deaths a day.
As for whether schoolkids behave well or not, that's not the point. The question is whether schools can reopen without a big spike (as I'm sure we all hope). The assumption has to be that kids AREN'T going to behave well--the question is whether how dangerous that proves. How catastrophic would it be to reopen two potential big vectors for spread at once?
Cooking is drudgery and the restaurant scene is a third of the point of living in this city. But I'm not dying for indoor dining, and neither should any one else be forced to. Remember that not supporting small businesses and their employees is a deliberate Republican choice. None of this HAS to be like this.
Regarding reopening, and the density of NYC establishments...
Regardless if you are a 200 seat restaurant in Westchester, or a 30 seat restaurant in the East Village, 50% capacity is 50% capacity. So why would that make NYC spaces more dense? They are a small space that would be half filled, versus a large space that would be half filled, and have a lot more people inside. Perhaps the small space and small capacity is actually safer.
Let this be data and science driven. If there is no spike, it should be safe. If there is a spike, then would need to shut restaurants again. At least try it in one zip code. This is a scary virus, but the doom tactics are killing business.
PS - Remember how all the marches were going to lead to a spike? It never happened...
The rest of NYS has been open for months without a rise in cases. NJ is reopening as well. Opening schools before indoor dining is daft. Expecting a divided and partisan government to offer any support to the one city that stays closed while everything around it is open is also daft.
Even with indoor dining they would never be able to make the pre-covid profits that in turn was what paid their rent.....and that number has not and will not change. Most restaurants pre-covid were running on a check to check basis. Mermaid Inn probably didn't have a huge lunch crowd due to location. Therefore they depended on the weekend rush for dinner and the brunch crowd. Those patrons were made up of many tourists and NYC residents......most who have left or stayed away. They are not making the numbers to pay a rent that acts like nothing has happened. Landlords could be a main component in the blame.
Governor Meatballs and Mayor DumDum are trying to show who can be the most inept leader while destroying the greatest City in the world.
Soooo many memories, friends and oysters were had
The oysters are all celebrating.
Restaurants in the suburbs are much more spaced out in a larger area/space.
Because of the high rents in NYC, restaurants in NYC will maximize the area that they're paying exorbitant rent. A restaurant in the suburbs, for example, will have have about a 30 seat capacity in a 500 sq feet area, while NYC restaurants will have about 50+ seat in that same 500 sq feet area.
One fo the allures of dining in NYC, to most, is that one is basically eating on top of each other, with hardly any elbow room.
So even if you reduce the capacity of the customers allowed,, a restaurant in NYC will still be densed. And Covid-19 is spread and transmitted via aerosols esp. in close proximities in indoor setting with poor ventilation.
I feel for the restaurants. I miss dining in. I appreciate and kudos to the outdoor setups--but you're still eating on street/sidewalks and it's not the same as dining indoors. When you're dining in a Peruvian or Argentinian restaurant, it transports or reminds one of being in those respective countries. The ambiance, decor... count, not just the food. But I digress.
What's the resolution for restaurants opening up for indoor dining? Outside of having a vaccine or health, state, city officials will say that the virus isn't as dangerous anymore as when its outbreak and that it's no different than a flu or a common cold, I don't know. For now, having it still not allowed is the right decision, esp. with the cold weather coming along with the flu season. We don't want to be in the position as we were in March.
Nothing like torpedoing an entire industry for a virus the majority of people won’t get, even less will need hospitalization for, and <1% will succumb to (most likely amongst a myriad of other health concerns). The continued response to this is doing way more damage.
But for some it sure does feel righteous. So there’s that.
Surprised at how many adults seem to actually believe that the governor and mayor are currently operating out of a) an evil desire to destroy the city or 2) plain old idiocy mental incapacity. I am no fan of either person but I'll continue to assume they are acting in the best interest of public health, and that doing so bears a significant economic cost. Who knows maybe Andy and Bill actually are sitting at home laughing maniacally at everyone's pain and misery. I just have a hard time believing it.
As someone said, elections have consequences. How long will New York continue to be a one party state? Depends on the voters. Let's see how they vote in November. It's safe to say at least 50% of the closed bars and restaurants will never reopen. Is the air that much cleaner in New Jersey? Long Island? Connecticut? How come the politicians in power don't have any answers to simple questions? New Yorkers need to wake up.
is there a logical/workable number of bars/restaurants that the east village can tolerate/support ?
The city has been shut down for six months now. As the lockdown hasn’t gotten rid of the virus, we need to find a policy that allows for businesses to operate safely, before every venue flies bankrupt and people end up homeless and starving. So whatever protections are needed to operate, put them in place, but reopen already.
It's important to remember that the lockdown was never going to get rid of the virus - that's not how this works. The virus is here and it will be here forever.
Lockdown was to slow the inevitable spread, to ensure those that needed urgent care were able to get it by not overwhelming those services when transmission was at its height. We accomplished that back in late April/early May, given NYC peaked in mid-April.
The sheer exposure of our population to the virus also means that we will never return to that level of transmission in NYC - so all the fear mongering about a "second wave" here is just that. But the goal posts have repeatedly been shifted, and continue to be.
The measures we are still being asked to take will never "get rid" of the virus anyway (and a vaccine won't "get rid" of it either, considering the type of virus it is - so the idea that that is the ultimate solution is misguided at best, and disingenuous at worst, depending on who is suggesting it.)
Our city and state government continue to push these restrictions at the peril of small businesses, those that have lost their jobs, those that are unable to get medical or other help they need (mental issues, etc.), those that are experiencing more domestic violence and crime considering the circumstances, those that are unable to collect any type of benefits/unemployment, etc.
I find it pathetic that we as a community are not fervently disputing these measures for the destructive force they are - and the city is going to pay for it for years to come.
Honest question, not in response to anyone in particular: how long do you go along with what you are told, when the narrative it is at odds with the known behavior of viruses in general, and the data available for this virus specifically?
The article doesn't mention the landlord, but the buiding is owned by Crystal Apartments, LLC whose principal partner was the late Michael Hrynenko (he died 3 years ago). His mother, Maria, and he co-owned 119 and 121 2nd Avenue, the buildings on 7th St. that had the gas explosion in 2015 that killed 2 people. Crystal is Michael's sister, thus the name of the LLC. So this family is still involved in owning some real estate in the neighborhood, and it is shameful that they couldn't come to terms with the owners of Mermaid Inn for a lease renewal during such a challenging time. The space will probably sit vacant for a year or more now.
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