Cursed Restaurant Space Gets Fresh Meat

Yaargh, the frothing 17,000 square foot vortex at Third Avenue and 40th Street has swallowed up many an ambitious restaurant, and even left jaunty Jeffrey Chodorow with nothing but an ivory stump for a leg. Some say that spot on the map is cursed by a foul wind, and no one's been fool enough to set sail for it in years, ever since that monomaniacal Captain Chodorow lost his leaky Wild Salmon to tropical storm Frank.

But now modern-Mexican chef Richard Sandoval (Pampona) and his first mate, opera singer Placido Domingo, will try their luck, to the tune of $750,000 a year in rent! Their ambitious joint venture will be the first NYC location of Zengo, their Latin-Asian fusion concept that's stayed afloat in Washington, DC. Their plan is to break the curse by flooding the tri-level leviathan with 500 different kinds of tequilas, rendering it too sodden to ruin them.