By: Ellen Cans
Restaurateur Simon Oren is jumping on a limb to open up a Middle Eastern restaurant at the long-vacant space in the Quin Hotel in Midtown Manhattan.
As reported by the NY Post, the high-energy intersection of Sixth Avenue and West 57th Street, will be the home of Oren’s latest restaurant. Oren’s planned 9,601-square-foot eatery will serve Middle Eastern cuisine, with a focus on modern-Israeli cuisine (but not kosher) and eastern Mediterranean — a mix he said is missing in Midtown. The eatery, which has yet to be named, will be situated at 101 W. 57th on the northwest corner of the bustling block. T
he spot was previously a bust for former owners, with a string of restaurants opening and closing at the spot, which had first housed Wolf’s Delicatessen, before it closed decades ago. The corner, situated just blocks from Central Park, already has two other busy, big-league eateries — Marc Packer’s Rue 57 and the Stillman family’s Quality Italian.
Oren told the Post the asking rent for the space was $1 million a year but, “We paid less.” The space has 3,800 square feet at street level, another 2,500 square feet on the second floor and 2,500 more below ground level. It is slated to have about 120 dining room seats on the ground floor and 30 more upstairs, where there will also be private rooms. The last restaurant to try its luck at the spot was Wayfarer, but it shuttered in 2020, when the pandemic hit.
Oren, a long-time food guru, is the owner and founder of Chef Driven and Tour de France Hospitality groups, which owns restaurants Nice Matin,L’Express, and Cafe d’Alsace to name a few. He is also the managing partner of Barbounia and the Five-Napkin Burger chain. In October, Oren and his partners also launched Monterey, an upscale art-deco American restaurant located on East 50th Street. Also, in February 2021, Oren opened Dagon restaurant on the Upper West Side’s Broadway, serving modern Israeli cuisine, as well as Arab Middle East and North African food. These restaurants are also Not kosher certified.
The new eatery at the Quin hotel probably will not be ready to open its doors for about nine months. “You take over a spot that used to be a restaurant, so you think it will be easy and only take four or five months,” Oren told the Post. “It doesn’t work that way. Monterey took me a year to build even though it had been a restaurant before.” The Quin is a brand of Hilton Grand Vacations, which is the landlord of the restaurant space, per the Post,. Lee & Associates’ Brad Schwarz represented Oren and CBRE’s Jared Lack together with Andrew Goldberg acted on behalf of the landlord. The just-signed lease “was a year and a half in the making,” Oren said. “I don’t want to say they were picky, but they were more concerned about finding the right tenant than the rent.”
“Quite a few groups were interested, including from out of town,” Oren added. “But they really wanted a local operator with a track record. Their due diligence was very long but no one was in a rush.” Oren told the Post he’s cautiously optimistic about the venture– given inflation and the rising costs of labor. But he added, “It’s been a good season for us.”
