Fans of buying booze from fancy food trucks, your days are numbered. Earlier this year the SLA granted liquor licences to the food trucks currently parked where the Tavern on the Green's Crystal Room once stood, but the experiment will not be long lived. Crain's, which has a lock on the Tavern beat, reports that the Parks Department has decided not to renew the trucks leases. Their last day will be October 15. more ›

The nearly month-long strike outside the Central Park Boathouse may finally be coming to a close...and it looks like the union side of the battle may be the winners. No deal has been signed yet, so things could still go wrong, but it currently looks like Boathouse boss Dean Poll has not only agreed to rehire 18 fired workers, he also seems to ready to recognize and negotiate with the New York Hotel Trades Council union. Soon, sub-par overpriced fare in a stunning setting can be yours again—without the guilt of crossing a picket line! more ›

The 65 Central Park Boathouse employees who walked off the job on August 9 in protest against the restaurant's labor practices are getting some heavy-hitting support from the federal National Labor Relations Board, which oversees union matters. more ›

People have been selling packaged New York City tap water for years...but charging $8-a-pop per bottle for the champagne of municipal waters? That's a little rich for our blood. And yet that is exactly what the striking workers at the Central Park Boathouse say that operator Dean Poll has had them charge for bottles of filtered tap water for years. more ›

Restaurateur Dean Poll just can't catch a break. First the city goes after him in 2007 for millions in unpaid taxes from the Central Park Boathouse, then he loses his contract to run the Tavern on the Green because of union troubles, then his further union problems are caught on tape and now six current and former employees have filed a complaint alleging that the Boathouse is a hotbed of sexual harassment. more ›

Unions and Central Park eateries are all over the news this week. Hot on the heels of Donald Trump's surprise announcement that he had come to an agreement with Local 6 of the hotel and restaurant workers union to operate Tavern on the Green (even though he has no lease there and the space is spoken for through October) comes the news that workers at the Boathouse restaurant (whose owner, Dean Poll, actually had the Tavern lease but was unable to come to a deal with Local 6) have secretly been taping their bosses' anti-union tirades. more ›

After six months of negotiations between the restaurateur who won the bid to operate Tavern on the Green, and the labor union that represents the shuttered tourist trap's 400 former employees, the would-be operator has walked away from the project, the AP reports. Now what will become of "that always overcrowded café to whose allure all visitors to the park would eventually succumb on even the nicest days, despite the well-known quality of its ambiance and food," as Wallace Shawn put it in a thinly-veiled allusion to Tavern. Two words: Snack bar! more ›

Apparently some people did like the décor in Tavern on the Green, after all—a court-ordered sale of the restaurant’s gawdy interior made a big dent in the bankrupt establishment’s $8 million debt. The piecemeal auction, which sold not only items from Tavern but from the Russian Tea Room and other restaurants, lasted three days and earned millions. But was it enough to keep the historic eatery’s 400-plus creditors at bay? more ›

[UPDATE BELOW] As the current owners of Tavern on the Green prepare to clear out and auction off everything inside the storied Central Park restaurant, it's still far from clear that the place will reopen any time soon under new management. Cantankerous Steve Cuozzo at the Post is alarmed that after all that effort expended by the city to find a new leaseholder for the 19th century sheepfold, it could very well go dark after the LeRoy family leaves. Dean Poll, the owner of Central Park's Boathouse restaurant, won the rights to negotiate the lease to the property, but he hasn't actually signed it yet. At least Cuozzo's not getting all emo about it or anything: more ›

The NYC Parks Department selected a new operator for that touristy chestnut, Tavern on Green. By picking Dean Poll, who already runs the Central Park Boathouse, the Parks Department is kicking out the restaurant's current operator Jennifer LeRoy. The Post says Poll's bid (apparently offering to spend $25 million to restore the space) was better than LeRoy's and adds, "Although it had revenues of $36 million in 2008, Tavern paid just 3.5 percent of that amount in rent to the city following a generous contract originally signed by LeRoy's well-known dad, Warner, during the depths of a fiscal crisis in 1973." (Poll pays 16.5% to the Parks Dept. at the Boathouse.) Poll's lease is for 20 years and the NY Times reports that besides updating the plumbing and kitchen facilities, his "proposal calls for an outdoor cafe and bike racks. The Crystal Room, often used for weddings, will be reconceived as a conservatory-style dining space." Plus, there will be two entrances—one for banquet dining and the other for the restaurant and a new bar—in an effort to make it more welcoming to casual dining. Poll also said he wants to keep the union employees. more ›