Eatery Owner Offers New Windows to Sleep-Deprived Neighbors

Owners of the Cosmopolitan Hotel have scrapped plans for constructing an extension to their building. Instead, the existing structure will house a new restaurant. Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib

Restaurateurs with plans to open an establishment in a bar-and-restaurant-heavy corner of Tribeca are promising not to add to the disturbances that neighbors complain are keeping them up at night. And they say they will even put sound-proof windows in their apartments to make sure of it.

The Cafeteria Group, known for its popular Chelsea eatery, Cafeteria, is opening a two-floor, 150-seat restaurant at 107 West Broadway, at Reade Street, next year, the former home of the Mexican restaurant Mary Ann’s. The Do-Bar Hotel Corporation, which owns the space as well as the adjoining Cosmopolitan Hotel, has nixed its plans to build a six-story hotel extension at the site. 

On Tuesday, April 23, Community Board 1 voted its advisory approval for Cafeteria's liquor license.

Appearing before the board's Tribeca Committee earlier in the month, Cafeteria co-owner Mark Thomas Amadei tried to assure several wary and soon-to-be neighbors that his eatery would not join other establishments in the neighborhood as a source of complaints about noisy late-night customers who congregate on the sidewalk.

Amadei, who had previously met with about 20 residents to discuss their concerns, proposed starting a block association with the neighboring restaurants to monitor boisterous customers on Reade Street and West Broadway.

“What I’ve heard from the neighbors is that there are a lot of people that are loitering on the street and that the bouncers at these various restaurants are just keeping them away from right in front of their place,” he said. “The restaurants on the block need to get together and hire one private security person that’s just going to patrol the block.”

He also took the unusual step of offering to add interior soundproof windows in residents’ bedrooms that overlook Reade Street. And he said he would close the restaurant’s West Broadway entrance at 1 a.m. A second entrance to the restaurant, which is through the neighboring Cosmopolitan Hotel, will close at 2 a.m. Amadei also agreed, after the committee meeting, to close the restaurant's operable windows facing Reade Street by 8 p.m. if he gets noise complaints from neighbors.  

With those closing hours and Amadei’s promises in mind, the committee voted 6-2 to recommend approval of the license.