Nobody credits landlords when restaurant leases are signed or renewed. Yet, every time a restaurant closes at the end of a lease, it’s cited as proof that New Yorkers will all soon have to eat at home.
Crain’s recently included the likely closing of Blue Water Grill on Union Square as evidence of proliferating “fine-dining deserts.”
Missing was any essential context. For one thing, the place’s owner, BR Guest Hospitality, seems in the business of closing places as swiftly as it can.
For another, Blue Water’s landlord, Ari Ellis, loves restaurants. Everyone scoffed when he told The Post two years ago that he wanted to replace another eatery tenant of his, the original Union Square Cafe on East 16th Street, with a new restaurant.
But Ellis got no credit when he later leased the space to udon noodle mecca TsuruTonTan — so popular that its owners are launching a second outpost at 64 W. 48th St., the site of a former sporting goods store.