Community Board 3 October Agenda: Is the Mamajuana Café Taking Over the Old Tonic Space?

By Rebecca Marx Tue., Sep. 28 2010 at 4:40 PM

Categories: Marx, Restaurant News and Notes

Coming to Norfolk Street?

Community Board 3's October SLA/DCA committee meeting agenda can now be found on the CB3 Web site. With a mere 18 items on the agenda, the Oct. 18 meeting doesn't bear the outward hallmarks of some of CB3's more epic endurance tests. Still, there are a few potentially interesting items to be found.

Apparently the old Pizzanini space on Second Avenue and St. Marks is going to become a coffee shop called Roastown Coffee St. Marks, while seven blocks south on East 1st Street, the Elephant is going to make way for a "Corp to be Formed."

And here's something curious: at 107 Norfolk Street, the former home of Tonic, there's a liquor license application for the '"Mama Juana Café." Which wouldn't be so odd if the French restaurant chain Dans Le Noir? hadn't announced their intentions to turn the space into the city's first dining-in-the-dark restaurant, staffed entirely by the blind. There's already one outpost of the Mamajuana Café in Washington Heights; it's part of a self-described "Nueva Latina" restaurant chain based in Coral Gables, FL.

So despite having their liquor license application approved by CB3 in August, has Dans Le Noir? abandoned Norfolk Street? Has a French chain restaurant been replaced by a Florida chain restaurant? And can't we just bring Tonic back instead?

Have a tip or restaurant-related news? Send it to fork@villagevoice.com.