Wegmans Astor Place Is Finally Open

Wegmans Astor Place opens today, with Wegmaniacs lining up before the 9 a.m. doors — the long-promised unveiling of the grocery store’s first Manhattan outpost. The 87,000-square-foot store features its usual pizza and deli counters, as well as made-to-order and packaged meals available in the store or by way of its Wegmans meals2GO app for pick-up and delivery. The store will also be home to a 94-seat seafood restaurant with a Champagne and oyster bar and a sushi counter — with the opening in the first half of 2024. The company’s second New York City location — the first opened in 2019 in the Navy Yards — is located at 770 Broadway, at East Ninth Street, in the former home of the Astor Place Kmart, which closed after more than two decades in June 2021. The store is open from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. Wegmans has 110 stores along the East Coast and has been around for over 100 years. — Melissa McCart, editor

A restaurant from a ‘Top Chef’ alum returns following fire

In March, HŪSO and its adjoining Marky’s Caviar shut down due to a fire that ripped through the shared restaurants. The Madison Avenue space has reopened. Meanwhile, two-time Top Chef winner Buddha Lo is expanding the restaurant with a downtown outpost. It’ll open in early 2024 at 190A Duane Street, at Greenwich Street, in Tribeca.

Italian sandwiches by way of moped

Salvo’s Cucina Casalinga is the latest Instagram delivery service to launch — this one specializing in Italian sandwiches delivered on a 1977 Puch Magnum. Salvo’s debuted around four months ago, and this week caught the attention of Grub Street. Weekly sandwich menus are announced on the company’s Instagram and the delivery zone for pre-orders currently is Bed-Stuy, Ridgewood, and Bushwick.

Gage & Tollner will likely be surrounded by construction for years

The historic restaurant Gage & Tollner, which reopened in 2021, after years of development, may soon be further cloaked in the shadows of Downtown Brooklyn’s constant construction. New buildings will likely flank either side of the building that houses the restaurant, according to a report by Brownstoner, leaving its address as the last of its architecture-style standing.