Carmelo Anthony Just Threw Down $5M for NYC Restaurants

NBA hotshot Carmelo Anthony made a hefty investment in two NYC restaurants: Nobody’s Pizza, an Italian restaurant in South Bronx, and the Ainsworth, an upscale sports bar that’s more recently known as the place for Jonathan Cheban’s soul-crushing gold-plated wings.

The Post reports that Anthony’s $5 million injection into the businesses is to expand the them across the country — somewhere between 20 to 30 locations in the next seven years, mostly near sports stadiums. It’s a deal with Keith Rubenstein, the real estate developer behind Somerset Partners. Nashville, where the Ainsworth is already planning a new location, will be the first city on deck for a Nobody’s Pizza expansion as well.

Nobody’s Pizza has one location in Mott Haven, at 136 Alexander Ave. near East 134th Street. It serves thinner-crusted pies, ranging from a classic tomato-basil-mozz one to a vodka sauce pie with jerk chicken. Calzones, pasta, salads, and entrees like a burger and grilled salmon are also on the menu.

Ainsworth, though, has already been on an expansion tear. Four locations already exist in NYC, in Midtown, Chelsea, and the East Village, and earlier this year, a new location opened in FiDi. The restaurant and sports bar also has two outposts in New Jersey and another in Kansas City.

It serves takes on bar fare, like wings, tacos, and a lot of burgers, and though those 24-karat gold wings have gotten a lot of press lately, the Ainsworth’s menu previously had a taste for the outrageous. It also has an over-the-top mac and cheese burger, where panko-crusted mac and cheese gets formed into a patty and goes on top of a beef patty; another scoop of mac and cheese is thrown on, too.

This new investment is also not the first time Anthony — who played for the Knicks for years before joining Oklahoma City Thunder in 2017 — has dipped his toes in the restaurant world. In 2016, he was reportedly partnering up with restaurateur Stratis Morfogen on an Asian-ish sports bar called Mr. Big Shot, though that has yet to come into fruition.

• Carmelo Anthony invests $5M in sports bars, pizza restaurants [NYP]