When you bring Mariano Rivera in, you expect him to close things out — not close you down.
But that’s just what happened, albeit through no fault of the now-retired Yankees great, when a building managing agent barred East Side eatery Siro’s from creating a Mariano Rivera clubhouse room — because she didn’t want a flood of “ghetto people” from the Bronx coming to the area, a new Manhattan lawsuit claims.
The sports-themed Second Avenue eatery, in which Rivera was a partner along with “Entourage” stars Kevin Dillon and Kevin Connolly, subsequently went out of business after having poured a ton of money into the clubhouse room based on the future Hall of Famer.
Restaurateur Keith Kantrowitz slapped lawyer/managing agent Susanne Lieu with the suit on Wednesday.
Kantrowitz claims Lieu put the kibosh on his $3 million Rivera clubhouse plan, saying that “she would not permit the image of a stadium or Mariano Rivera’s name to be used because she did not want ‘ghetto people’ from the Bronx congregating in the restaurant in the building she was operating,” according to the suit.
Kantrowitz, of Manhattan Sports Restaurants of America, says Lieu also forced Siro’s staff to switch channels away from sporting events because she feared the programs would “attract certain clientele … persons of color.”
The clubhouse theme would have included a bar shaped like a stadium.
“Derek Jeter lived down the street and there are other Yankees in the neighborhood,” explained Kantrowitz’s lawyer David Jaroslawicz.
“And if this was the clubhouse and they showed up the crowd would follow.”
He accused Lieu, who works for the owners of the 885 Second Ave. building, Plaza Tower LLC, of driving him out of business.
Siro’s on Second Avenue, named after the famed eatery in Saratoga Springs that’s only open during the horse racing season, shuttered in March.
An attorney for Lieu said, “The allegations are utterly baseless and defamatory.”
The lawyer, Andrew Levander called the suit “an obvious attempt to divert attention from the failure of the [Kantrowitz’s] restaurant.”