News

• A chance meeting on 27th Street shapes two new NYC haunts

BY JASON SHEFTELL
DAILY NEWS REAL ESTATE CORRESPONDENT

Friday, July 16th 2010

New York City could be the only place in the United States where the local pub and cafe is as important as your home. Why is easy. New Yorkers live in closet apartments where couches touch front doors and pint-size refrigerators double as side tables. Cafes have become our offices; bars and restaurants our dining halls.

No one knows this better than Pete O’Connell, co-owner of Molly’s Shebeen on 22nd St. and Third Ave. and the Paris Cafe on Peck Slip, two of the most historic neighborhood pub restaurants in the city.

“I know bars and I know people who drink in them, but I don’t know a lick about designing them,” says O’Connell, 62, who opened Molly’s in 1991 and tended bar there until recently. “I’m just a poor farmer from Ireland. I like homey bars. When I wanted to open new spaces that would bring people together in New York, I thought FIT could help.”....
(Read more at http://www.nydailynews.com/real_estate/2010/07/16/2010-07-16_chance_meeting_on_27th_st_shapes_two_new_nyc_haunts.html)

• Open Door Noted in Gothamist
http://gothamist.com/2010/06/24/new_restaurant_and_bar_radar_9.php?gallery0Pic=2#gallery

• Open Door Mentioned in Wall Street Journal
From “Financial District Rallies as Residential Area” by Sushil Cheema (May 29, 2010):
John Street features Bon Chon Chicken, Open Door Gastropub and Café Sage, a trio of restaurants with sleek interiors.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704596504575272403046111016.html

• Open Door Recommended by food blogger Brigid Pearson
July 16:
How did they make this salad so good? Open Door Gastropub (oh, if only we could eliminate that word “gastropub” from the culinary lexicon. Do you want the word “gas” in a restaurant name?) is a sprawling place downtown with a good beer selection and surprisingly high-quality food. I’m pretty sure that what made my salad so good was the pears on top. They had apparently been soaked in sugar and vanilla for quite some time, which made them irresistible.
http://brigidpearson.tumblr.com/page/2