Is Vanderbilt Avenue Cursed?
Over the weekend, the chef Greg Baxtrom announced that he was closing his nearly decade-old Prospect Heights restaurant, Olmsted. The move had been, he says, in the cards for some time; the space was quietly advertised, in a broker email that didn’t disclose the address, back in May. Another restaurateur said they’d “seen the writing on the walls” for months. Baxtrom says that his restaurant started to be seen as a special-occasion place, which made it difficult to bring in consistent business. “It’s very flattering that people want to celebrate with us,” he says. “but we fought tooth and nail to be as neighborhood-friendly as possible.”
The question that’s facing many in the area is, Is this a neighborhood that can really support elevated spots at all? Since Olmsted opened in 2016, Vanderbilt has developed into one of the city’s most visible restaurant rows, filled with small establishments that aim to punch far above their weight. There was Faun, an Italian restaurant that served ravioli with baccalà and boar shank in its early days. LaLou brought a new level of wine service, courtesy of co-owner Joe Campanale. At one point, Baxtrom ran three restaurants. At Prospect Butcher Co., customers fork over premium prices for dry-aged meat. Ciao, Gloria is as ambitious as all-day cafés get, and there’s a giant Van Leeuwen stealing business away from the original Ample Hills (which, against all odds, remains open). But amid the boom, signs of a bust have started to appear: Baxtrom’s restaurants will all be closed by Labor Day. LaLou closed, as did Faun, and the decades-old Mitchell’s Soul Food. The high-end grocer and sandwich shop R&D Foods is closing this weekend. “There has been such a tremendous change, not just in Brooklyn but in this little spot,” says Sara Dima, who along with a partner, Ilene Rosen, opened R&D in 2014. “I love Vanderbilt Avenue. I think it’s going through a transition. Like anything else, we all signed these leases ten and 11 years ago, and we’re choosing to say we’re not going back again.” The spate of closings has some comparing the street to another commercial strip in Brooklyn where frequent turnover is the norm: Smith Street.
“Is it cursed?” Baxtrom asks, laughing. “What I don’t understand is why we’re different from Fort Greene, when you go down DeKalb. There are more restaurants than there are on Vanderbilt, and they have all been there for a minute. When I talk to other restaurateurs from Vanderbilt, that’s our question: Why does DeKalb seem busier than us?”
The area has been anticipating massive development (and an influx of residents) since the 2003 announcement of Pacific Park (née Atlantic Yards), which remains unfinished. New buildings have opened up along Dean Street, along with a 60,000-square-foot Chelsea Piers. But the development is not the windfall some had expected. To start, the construction causes plenty of headaches — including water shutdowns required to upgrade infrastructure — and the expected customers haven’t necessarily materialized. Campanale thinks changing neighborhood demographics play a part.
“It’s become, even more and more, a family neighborhood,” he says, explaining that he and his wife have two young children at home. “I think there are a lot of people like Ilyssa and me in the neighborhood, who love the idea of great restaurants, and go to them, but not with the same frequency as before, and maybe we don’t spend as much when we do go out.”
Parents do go out, of course, but not necessarily to chef-driven dinner spots: “It’s very clear what does well in Vanderbilt,” Baxtrom says. “It’s things where the entrée is $18 at Zaytoons, or the bagel shop, or Maya Taqueria, or Nourish.”
And then there are the rents. Vanderbilt’s popularity has driven them up. The space that houses Baxtrom’s restaurant Patti Ann’s has been listed for $18,900 per month. LaLou’s rent was just over $8,000 per month. A 1,700-square-foot “prime corner location,” address unlisted, went below market for $10,300. But over on Washington Avenue, a 1,080-square-foot space was being advertised at $3,400 a month. “Why would you pay $15,000 or $20,000 a month on Vanderbilt when you can pay the same for a space in midtown right now?” says one industry observer.
Akhtar Nawab opened the Mexican restaurant Alta Calidad in 2017, meaning he is now one of the longer-tenured chefs on the stretch. He doubled down on Vanderbilt this year when he opened the Mediterranean restaurant Wayward Fare next door to Alta Calidad, where he’s found it harder to get people in the door than it was eight years ago. And he says he’s had the same thought regarding rent: “My partner and I have spoken about this a little bit. We’ve been like, ‘Should we just go ahead and pay the $35,000, $40,000 rents in midtown to see more traffic, or do we keep doing what we doing?” he says. “Ultimately we like the area we’re in; we like the folks we cook for. We just need more of them.”
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