Empire Steakhouse and The Smith Plan New Locations

The owners of Midtown's Empire Steakhouse send word that they are planning to open a second location this fall about seven blocks away at 237 West 54th Street. As you might recall, the restaurant has an enthusiastic group of web-savvy friends and fans. The new restaurant will seat about 230 people, and it will be open for lunch and dinner.

In other expansion news, the owners of generic but reliable American restaurant The Smith are opening a location at 1150 Broadway near 27th Street. That's a block and a half away from The Nomad hotel, and two and half blocks away from The Ace. Will this make the neighborhood cooler, or not as cool? Hard to say at this point. The new location of The Smith will open in summer or fall of 2014.

And one more piece of chain restaurant expansion news: A location of San Diego's Project Pie is going into the space that formerly housed Chelsea gay bar The Rawhide. The owner of the chain explains: "We feel like Manhattan is a market that we can expand in, and we are looking for more locations, especially in Midtown." Crain's notes that, "Project Pie's ambition is to become the Chipotle of pizza restaurants."
· All Coverage of Expansions [~ENY~]
[Photo: Empire Steakhouse]