LIEDERMAN
(
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Mickey Mantle’s is down to its last out.
The landlord is trying to evict the fan-favorite eatery once owned by the legendary Yankee slugger from its 25-year home on Central Park South for nonpayment of rent.
“They want to get rid of us at the end of May,” said current owner Chris Villano, who put the place into bankruptcy a few months ago.
But a pinch-hitter has stepped up to try rescuing Mantle’s — Bill Liederman, a friend of Villano who was No. 7’s original partner and sold his stake (coincidentally) seven years ago.
“We need $1 million to get it back on its feet,” said Liederman, who just returned to the restaurant and is ready to go down swinging.
To raise the dough, he’s trying to persuade former pinstripers including David Cone, Ron Guidry and Goose Gossage to chip in as little as $10,000 each.
But Liederman says he can’t get to first base with current team members. “Their agents just laugh,” he said.
Villano says he kept up the cafe despite a recent business falloff, adding 30 flat-screen TVs and putting “even better food” on its simple American menu.
But he says he stopped paying rent four months ago because of “issues” with landlord ATCO — including a longstanding scaffold that prevented him from renovating its façade.
He said he’ll countersue ATCO for trying to find a new tenant even though Villano has eight years left on his lease.
Mickey Mantle’s 240 seats sprawl over 7,000 square feet decorated with tons of sports memorabilia — most of it owned by Gotta Have It Collectibles, which has a gallery there.
Mantle’s family owns the “Magnificent Yankee” plaque outside, a replica of the one presented to The Mick by Joe DiMaggio in 1969 and on view in Yankee Stadium’s Monument Park.
When it opened in 1987, Hall of Famer Mantle owned a mere 7 percent of the business, but got so much of a kick out of it, he often hung out there until his death in 1995.
The rent at the opening was $250,000 a year, Liederman said, compared with $850,000 today.
Villano said Mantle’s family also has put the squeeze on the restaurant over the license fee for the use of the name. The license expired at the end of last year and he says they want three times the old fee, which he wouldn’t divulge, to renew it.
Villano attributed slower business to a “string of bad luck,” including the 2008 stock-market meltdown.
“We’re down 30 percent since then,” he said.
ATCO’s president, Dale Hemmerdinger, declined to comment.