Steve Cuozzo

Steve Cuozzo

Food & Drink

Brooks Brothers make their culinary debut

When Brooks Brothers launches its planned Makers and Merchants steakhouse next year, it will be taking a daring plunge into prime-beef territory.
As we first reported Monday on nypost.com, the famed American apparel chain aims to open a 15,000 square-foot eatery next summer at 11 E. 44th St., around the corner from its 346 Madison Ave. flagship.
Brooks Brothers has never been in the restaurant business. But the currently vacant venue, which the company previously used for its women’s line, is to be the prototype for what sources said would be a nationwide rollout of Makers and Merchants eateries.
The audacious opening will come smack amidst Manhattan’s most dense concentration of high-priced beef palaces. The East 40s are already home to Morton’s, Benjamin Steak, Sparks, Michael Jordan’s, the original Palm and Palm Too, the original Smith & Wollensky and Capital Grille. Plus, Strip House is one block west and STK only slightly further away.
But far from being too competitive, the East 44th Street location might be ideal for the clothing giant’s culinary debut. The blocks around Grand Central Terminal teem with high-spending executives craving classic American food.

Plus, proximity to Brooks Brothers’ history-steeped flagship thematically links the restaurant to its smartly woven, conservatively tailored men’s suits, shirts and ties. The beefery — named for the company’s slogan, “Makers and Merchants Since 1818” — will occupy three levels, which Brooks Brothers took over from J. Press in 2008.
While there’s no word yet on who will design it, expect the same rich wood paneling generations of shoppers have known at the flagship.

A Brooks Brothers spokesman confirmed the plan, saying the company was “looking at summer 2014” for the opening, but emphasized, “It’s still way out.”
In fact, although Brooks Brothers already controls the space, it has a lot of work to do. No plans have yet been filed with the Buildings Dept. or the State Liquor Authority. The retailer’s spokesman also said it has yet to choose an operator or management company.

Brooks Brothers boasts nearly 300 stores in the US and other countries. It is owned by Retail Brand Alliance, a holding company headed by Italian billionaire Claudio del Vecchio that bought the chain from Britain’s Marks and Spencer in 2001 for $225 million.
The steakhouse location is owned by Aion Partners, a real-estate invesment firm with a major commercial and residential portfolio around the US. The 136,000 square-foot 11 E. 44th St. is fully leased. Reps for Aion and leasing agent Newmark Grubb Knight Frank didn’t get back to us or declined to comment.


In more steakhouse news, Tony Fortuna’s always-packed, Upper East Side spot T-Bar launches an eagerly awaited downtown outpost this week. T-Bar Soho, at 331 West Broadway, will have 65 seats and a “more casual” version of the uptown one’s menu, which is known for mostly simple American steaks, chops and seafood skillfully prepared.
The 10-year lease is with Manhattan Realty Co. Terms were not available.


The prospective deal for GroupM to anchor Larry Silverstein’s 3 World Trade Center is moving along, sources said — but slowly.
The global ad giant signed a term sheet with Silverstein for 515,000 square feet last July, as we first reported. A completed lease would pave the way for Silverstein to build the tower, now at the 7-story podium level, to its full, 80-story height.
We wrote at the time that the deal might be finished this year. Although that’s still possible, insiders said early in 2014 is more like it. The slow pace is apparently over reconciling GroupM’s specific needs with the contours and characteristics of the Richard Rogers-designed skyscraper.
“Like the movie title, ‘it’s complicated,’ ” a source told us. “Remember, Condé Nast at 1 WTC and Coach at Hudson Yards took a long time, too.”
A completed lease would release $1.3 billion in low-interest Liberty Bonds financing. The tower’s total development cost is $2 billion.
Meanwhile, we hear Hudson Yards is out of the running — at least for the moment — in Citigroup’s search for a new headquarters. The choices are said to have been thinned to the bank’s existing space on Greenwich Street and to a new building at 2 World Trade Center.
“But don’t count the Yards out,” an insider said. “Citigroup is far from making up its mind, and it’s looking at other sites as well.”


Commercial law firm Meister Seelig & Fein has signed a new, 15-year-lease for 56,764 square feet at SL Green’s 125 Park Ave. The asking rent was $65 per square foot.
The firm, moving from 2 Grand Central Tower, will take the seventh and eighth floors. The deal was smoothed by SLG’s close relationship with firm principal Stephen Meister, with whom the realty company has worked on a number of major cases.
The law firm was repped by Avison Young’s Jason Meister — who calls Stephen Meister “Dad.” The landlord was repped by Newmark Grubb Knight Frank’s David Falk, Brian Waterman, Peter Shimkin, Daniel Levine and Jonathan Tootell.


Intimacy, the “bra fit stylists” lingerie store, will launch its fourth New York boutique at 104 Fifth Ave. between 15th and 16th streets. The lease for 3,000 square feet was done for “close to” the asking rent of $300 a square foot, according to Douglas Elliman’s Faith Hope Consolo who with her firm’s Joseph Aquino represented the landlord. Stacey Robins Realty repped the tenant.
Consolo said the Intimacy lease reflected the rise of Fifth Avenue’s Flatiron stretch as a popular shopping destination. She credited the arrival of Paul Smith, a deal on which she worked 25 years ago, as “first opening the door to Fashionable Flatiron.”
scuozzo@nypost.com