Hotel Home to Daniel Humm and Will Guidara Restaurants Faces Foreclosure

NoMad Hotel faces foreclosure

The very posh NoMad Hotel — the home of several Make It Nice restaurants from Eleven Madison Park owners Daniel Humm and Will Guidara, most prominently the NoMad restaurant and NoMad Bar — is facing a foreclosure sale, Commercial Observer reports. The owners of the hotel are caught up in several lawsuits with the building’s landlord and various lenders, with a whopping $140 million at stake — at odds with a positive financial performance for the boutique hotel. Humm and Guidara’s Make It Nice hospitality group declined to comment on if the June 6 foreclosure auction will affect their restaurants and bars, but the highest bidder will gain control of the hotel and its operations.

An opening and a closure

A new coffee shop called Hungry Ghosts opened in Tribeca at 165 Church St. serving nitro cold brew and kombucha on tap, in addition to Stumptown coffee, espresso drinks, and King David Tacos’s Austin-style breakfast tacos. But over at at 189 East Broadway, Mediterranean restaurant Cafe Petisco has been closed after a wall collapsed in the basement, but it’s unclear if it’s permanent.

Critics head to Joey Bats and Wayan

New Yorker critic Hannah Goldfield had an uneven experience at new Indonesian restaurant Wayan, from Cedric and Ochi Vongerichten. She found “expertly fried” spring rolls but “surprisingly flat and flavorless” pork satay and “supple” pandan custard but “dry” and “underseasoned” yellow chicken. Goldfield concludes that, “If there’s a through line, it’s that almost every dish, whether successful or not, is a bit muted, with a handful of exceptions.” She recommends diners head to Indo Java Groceries or Awang Kitchen in Elmhurst instead.

Meanwhile, Times Hungry City contributor Mahira Rivers — her first time reviewing for the column — visited Joey Bats Cafe on the Lower East Side for pastel de nata, or Portuguese egg tarts. “The fine layers of pastry crunch in all the right places as the soft, vanilla-spiked custard spills into your mouth with each bite,” she writes.

Man drunkenly pretends to be a cop at Staten Island restaurant

A drunk guy at DaddyO’s BBQ & Sports Bar on Staten Island was arrested Wednesday afternoon for pretending to be a cop and then crashing his motorcycle. Billy O’Toole, 48, reportedly simulated holding a knife against the neck of someone at the restaurant before leaving on his motorcycle and crashing a mile away.

Paper bags will cost five cents at stores in NYC

In the wake of the recent statewide plastic bag ban, NYC’s City Council approved a bill that will add a five-cent fee to all paper bags in the city. The idea is to limit one-time bag use so that shoppers don’t just switch to paper bags once plastic becomes unusable. Three cents of the fee will go to the state Environmental Protection Fund, with the remaining two-cent portion going to funding free reusable bags for low-income New Yorkers. The bill goes into effect on March 1, 2020.