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East Village restaurant Pinky’s Space is suing the city for $615,000 after officials with the Department of Transportation demolished its 30-foot outdoor dining setup “without notice” in October, the New York Post reports. The suit, filed in a Manhattan Supreme Court on Thursday, claims the restaurant’s owners “watched in horror” as city officials “mocked, danced, and laughed” for three hours as they took down the outdoor structure. The elaborate setup allegedly cost around $90,000 to build and has since cost Pinky’s more than $500,000 in lost business, per the suit. In December, a spokesperson for DOT claimed that Pinky’s had received three notices from the city over the structure, dating back to August. The third, in October, allegedly informed the owners that the shed would be taken down if it was not ADA-compliant.
A smash burger pop-up finds a permanent home
Smash burger upstart Gotham Burger Social Club is headed to the Lower East Side this spring with a permanent storefront, owner Mike Puma tells Forbes. The pop-up, which often slings burgers from Ray’s and other bars in the neighborhood, will open at 131 Essex Street, near Rivington Street, this spring. Expect single, double, and triple smash burgers, plus fried pickles, french fries, onion rings, and chopped-cheese tacos.
Owners of Gertie to open new restaurant in Prospect Heights
Nate Adler and Rachel Jackson, the owners of Williamsburg’s popular Jewish American restaurant Gertie, are taking over the space at 605 Carlton Avenue, at Saint Marks Avenue — the longtime home of the neighborhood’s James restaurant, which closed in November. The new restaurant, called Gertrude’s, will open this spring.
In Manhattan, a lawsuit over mochi
Mochidoki, a mochi ice cream business with outposts in Soho and the Upper East Side, is suing Upper West Side dessert shop Mochi Dolci over its “confusingly similar” name, the New York Post reports. “We do not sell mochi ice cream and it is quite painful trying to get these people to understand this,” Leo Cutone, owner of Mochi Dolci, tells the Post. “Now we have to hire an attorney to explain this to them in court.”
