Surprise! Kenmare Street Residents Don't Want Another Kenmare Street Restaurant
What's as predictable as taxes and as safe a bet as the opening of another Subway? That would be the opposition of Kenmare Street residents to the possibility of another Kenmare Street bar.
The owner of Toby's Public House, which CB2 last month denied approval for a full liquor license, held a meeting last night to try to win over their neighbors. Bowery Boogie attended the meeting, and reports that owner Christine Lu plied Kenmare Street residents with pizza and assured them that she just wants to open a "casual neighborhood place" at 86 Kenmare. The space will have 55 seats, two televisions, and the potential for outside seating.
The residents of Kenmare Street, however, weren't convinced, perhaps because their four-block-long street is already home to the Kenmare, Travertine, and La Esquina, which have collectively made "casual neighborhood place" into a euphemism for "vocal late-night intoxication."
Toby's, which plans to take over the space previously occupied by the ill-fated Village Tart, has an original location in Brooklyn's South Slope. It's known for its wood-fired pizzas and for being the original home of SCRATCHbread. It is by all accounts a pretty low-key place. But it still may be no match for the residents of Kenmare Street: After all, these are the people who drove Las Vegas out of town.
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