Star restaurateur Danny Meyer has joined the top-flight tenant tasters at the now-shuttered Ollie’s space next door to the Apple store on the Upper West Side, Side Dish has learned.
The 7,500-square-foot space at 1991 Broadway by Lincoln Center is coveted in large part because of its current neighbor.
“Being directly next door to Apple is a dream for any retailer or restaurateur, and we expect a tremendous amount of interest,” said property agent Jeffrey Roseman of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank Retail.
Sources say brands including Microsoft, Nike, Anthropologie and Patagonia have expressed interest, along with other restaurant groups such as the Cheesecake Factory and Junior’s.
Meyer is the CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group, whose restaurants include Union Square Cafe, Gramercy Tavern and the burger phenomenon, Shake Shack.
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LA-based Michael Della Femina — whose father, ad guru Jerry Della Femina, just sold his home in East Hampton for $25 million — is looking for pop-up restaurant spots in Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Hamptons.
His plan is to replicate Slate, the LA café and panini bar pop-up he owns with fellow actor Josh Weinstein, in New York. Slate, at 6541 Santa Monica Blvd., is around the corner from Rao’s new LA outpost.
Della Femina and Weinstein also partnered on “Bloody” Bill Annesley’s 2009 pop-up, Libertine, in West Hollywood.
So far, Della Femina has looked at a 500-square-foot gallery space on Sullivan Street and at a 400-square-foot butcher shop on Court Street in Cobble Hill. He also checked out a gallery space in Sag Harbor.
No leases were signed, however, and Della Femina will be back in a couple of weeks to continue the hunt, a source said.
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SIGHTING: Joanne Binder bringing the fake diamond necklace featured in the title sequence of the James Bond movie “Diamonds are Forever” to a friend’s birthday dinner at Da Tommaso. Her uncle, Maurice Binder, was the film’s title designer.