13 Crucial Facts About the New Tavern on the Green

Later this year, Tavern on the Green will reopen as a brand new restaurant from Philadelphia-based creperie owners Jim Caiola and David Salama. The Times magazine recently followed the couple around Manhattan as they plucked out design elements for the restaurant. Here are 13 important facts about the new Tavern on the Green and its operators, from the Times profile:

· The new restaurant will be less than half the size of the old one.
· Caiola first fell in love with Tavern on the Green as an acting student in the '80s. He tells the Times: "I just remember thinking, If I ever go into the restaurant business, this is where it would be."
· Caiola's dad is now running the crepe stand in Philly, so they can focus on New York.
· One of the dining rooms will be enclosed in a giant glass cube.

· The tables will be covered with olive green, ivory white, and dark brown leather. 250 tables, total.
· One of the old dining rooms is being turned into a bar.
· Under the contract that Caiola and Salama signed with the New York Hotel and Motel Trades Council, the restaurateurs will be able to open with nonunion workers, but the council has the right to unionize the restaurant after two years.
· Caiola on the new TOTG: "It's a really fire-driven menu, like in an Argentinian restaurant."
· Danny Meyer explains why he was not interested: "A real restaurant needs to have at least some intimacy, some soul. I would've wanted to shrink it down to nothing. That's why I never would have done Tavern on the Green."
· Caiola and Salama's holding company will owe the city six percent of the total sales or at least $1 million next year as a licensing fee (whichever is greater).
· To pay those fees, they will have to make $17 million in the first year. That's about 1,200 meals on a weekend day, and 600 on a day during the week.
· Caiola and Salama have borrowed about $16.7 million from Summit Partners Credit Advisors to finance the build-out.
· Jim Caiola and David Salama's Philly creperie makes a profit of $2 million a year.
· Remaking Tavern on the Green, One Fork at a Time [NYTM]
· All Coverage of Tavern on the Green [~ENY~]