The owners of the hot and trendy restaurants Torrisi Italian Specialties and Parm are among the restaurateurs sniffing around the dessicated corpse of Tavern on the Green, which the Parks Department showed off to potential operators today. "We’re taking it all in," Torrisi co-owner Zalaznick told City Room during the tour this morning. "The question is how casual they’ll let the restaurant be. It used to be a pretty formal place." During the tour and Q&A that followed, the Parks Department let it be known that they do indeed want the new iteration of Tavern to be casual and accessible. The city is spending $10 million to renovate and shrink it, and the Wall Street Journal reports that Assistant Parks Commissioner Betsy Smith made it clear that the new Tavern should be "a moderately priced restaurant" that's not as "fanciful and glitzy as before." more ›

The mess that is the once-and-future Tavern on the Green continues to be messy. As the city awaits bids for new restaurateurs to take over the fabled Central Park eatery a trickle of new info the project has come out. As the city implied in its Request For Proposals for the space, they are taking it back to the basics. The 1940s basics. more ›

And the next chapter in the never ending saga of Tavern on the Green begins! After its brief stint as a boozy food truck parking lot the storied Central Park restaurant is going to be a restaurant again. In theory. The Parks Department today released a Request For Proposals for a new operator for the space. Once the city is done doing some more construction on the space (which does not include the return of the late Crystal Room) it could be a "a high-quality casual restaurant, outdoor cafe and bar" by 2013! more ›

Just because John Liu has some campaign cash problems doesn't mean he doesn't have a job to do. Just ask the Parks Department, which just received a scathing audit from the Comptroller's office regarding its handling of concessions [PDF]. Though Parks strongly disagrees with the audit's findings, Liu and co. say that in the past three years the Department has left roughly $8.8 million in additional revenues on the table due to poor planning and mismanagement. The Parks Department's biggest mess-up over the years? Clearly the late Tavern on the Green. more ›

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 ›

Something is happening at the late Tavern on the Green space, but even the city isn't quite sure what. The food trucks that have been operating there (with booze!) for the past eleven months are about to see the end of their leases and the city is doing studies on the historic space's "current conditions." But what the future holds for the legendary corner of the park is up in the air. “As of now there are no plans in place for specific uses,” a Bloomberg rep told Crain's. 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 ›

Finally, some good news out of the food truck court that once was the Tavern on the Green: for the first time ever a New York City food truck has been given permission to serve booze, starting today. The SLA has given the green light to for the Pera Turkish Taco Truck to serve beer, wine and cocktails during regular operating hours—but only if the potent potables are consumed in the truck’s assigned seating area on the terrace. more ›

Tavern on the Green was always known more for its glitzy ambiance than for the quality of its food, so it's not particularly surprising to learn that a chef there may have been up to some shady shenanigans. Former executive banquet chef Damian Cardone is taking heat today for a Facebook confession regarding his habit of screwing customers who requested gluten-free pasta. Cardone, you see, is a gluten-allergy denier, and according to this Facebook post, he seemed to enjoy disregarding their requests: more ›

The Donald does not have a contract for the Tavern on the Green, but that doesn't mean he isn't loving the attention his out-of-the-blue proposal for the space has gotten him. In his latest bit of PR he's gone and chatted up the Post's food and real estate man Steve Cuozzo on his plan for the space, including dreams of a "good looking" replacement for the now gone Crystal Room. 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 ›

Yesterday, the new visitor center opened at the Tavern on the Green site, where the restaurant's brazenly gaudy Crystal Room once sat. The infamously tacky and mediocre tourist trap was to have been taken over by Dean Poll, who runs the Central Park Boathouse, but after negotiations with the restaurant's union went nowhere, Poll walked away, and the restaurant has been abandoned since January. In August, the city tore down the Crystal Room, and starting today the area's being used "temporarily" to sell T-shirts and edibles from upscale food trucks. And the local community board is fuming. more ›

After winning the lease to Tavern on the Green in Central Park, the restaurant's would-be owner walked away the project when a dispute with the union proved irreconcilable. The restaurant, located in a former sheepfold, has been empty since January, when the previous owner was forced out by the Bloomberg administration at the end of last year. It's no great loss considering the mediocre, overpriced food, but it is a waste of a beautiful space. So as the city considers new proposals, it's bringing in a variety of food vendors to work Tavern's outdoor terrace, facing the Sheep Meadow. more ›

Shuttered Tavern On The Green will be getting a taste of the city's food truck trend now that the Parks Department awarded a one-year $100,000 concession to Mount Kisco based Ladle of Love—now with a new Rosh Hashanah menu! The truck will be serving soups, sandwiches and salads as well as wines and cocktails from a truck parked in a courtyard across from the former iconic restaurant. Ladle of Love will be joined by three other food trucks in the area. more ›

The Bloomberg administration rejected a significantly higher bid for the license to operate Tavern on the Green, instead awarding the rights to an operator who failed to deliver, according to financial documents obtained by the Post through the Freedom of Information Law. Dean Poll, who operates the Central Park Boathouse cafe, won the rights with a $57.3 million bid and the promise to invest $25 million in renovations. But the restaurant's longtime operator—Jennifer LeRoy and the LeRoy family—agreed to pay the city $86 million in fees over the 20-year lease. It was by far the highest bid, but the Parks Department rejected it, and now the famous restaurant is going to be a visitors center and hot-dog stand for the foreseeable future. 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 ›

On Halloween night, Alex & Leo Entertainment, Inc. hosted a party at Tavern on the Green. Tickets were anywhere from $60 to $130, with around 5,000 revelers doling out their hard earned cash for the extravaganza (which promised an open bar and buffet). After an overcrowding problem due to alleged scalped tickets, however, the party only ran for 90 minutes, after guests waited 3 hours to get in. When word hit the press, the company promised refunds. more ›

Glittery Central Park tourist trap and celebrity banquet hall Tavern on the Green will serve its last mediocre meal on New Year's Eve. Earlier this year, the current operators filed for bankruptcy after their license to run the restaurant was not renewed by the city, and next month artifacts such as silver candelabras, stone sculptures, art nouveau mirrors, and Tiffany lamp shades will go up on the auction block. 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 ›

Channel 7's Tappy Phillips wants answers about that Tavern on the Green debacle that went down on Halloween night. To recap: the restaurant pointed the finger at the promoters, who in turn pointed the finger at scalpers who pushed the event over capacity and advertised the wrong start time. As a result, thousands more than expected showed up to the restaurant and stood around for hours trying to get in. Because what else are you going to do in New York City on Halloween? The cops eventually shut the party down at 1:30 a.m., about an hour after it started. But don't worry, Tappy's on it! more ›

The Tavern on the Green seems to be cursed lately, so it's fitting that they housed a Halloween party from hell over the weekend. The Daily News reports that the restaurant was a frightening scene on Saturday night "when thousands of extra revelers showed up — many of whom bought bogus tickets online" for a party that promised to begin at 9 p.m. and include an open bar and an all-you-can-eat buffet. more ›

After threatening to lay off some 400 employees during the lucrative holiday season, Tavern on the Green has been granted a reprieve. The city had ordered owners to vacate the premises on January 1st and turn over the lease, but owners insisted that deadline would have required them to close down in December, in order to conduct an onsite auction of their assets, which were valued by an appraiser at $8.171 million. Though Tavern's owners had wanted three months for the changeover, a US Bankruptcy Court judge in Manhattan said "two weeks to a month" in January would be "a reasonable transition period." But will the new occupant play along? more ›

The 400 union employees at Tavern on the Green are facing the prospect of joblessness during the holiday season, because the restaurant's owners says they can't turn over the lease on January 1st without closing before December. So Tavern's operating company has asked for a temporary restraining order in US Bankruptcy Court that would permit them to delay the changeover for 90 days after January 1st, enabling the restaurant to operate during the lucrative month of December, and then conduct an onsite auction of their assets, which were valued by an appraiser at $8.171 million. But the new leaseholder isn't having it. more ›

Would a Tavern on the Green by any other name fare just as well in Central Park? The NY Times digs into the latest debate over the restaurant's name, which is reportedly appraised at $19 million. more ›

The union that organizes restaurant workers at Tavern on the Green is spoiling for a fight with the new leaseholder, who's trying to renegotiate the union's contract. The new operator, Dean Poll, was awarded the license by the Parks Department last month, but he's under no obligation to honor the previous labor contract. So he wants the workers to agree to a pay cut, agree to no advance notice for layoffs or reduction in hours, and a change to the banquet staff to a vague new hourly rate, without tips. They're currently paid $5.26 an hour with tips. more ›