The fifth NYC Urbanspace food hall opens today in the Financial District, with 16 vendors operating in the 15,000-square-foot space, offering breakfast, lunch, and dinner options, as well as specialty coffee and beer.
The 100 Pearl Street location, although impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, is experiencing revitalization as workers return to the office. Still, it is not quite as busy as it once was. The food hall has two main entrances on either side of the building and is positioned at the heart of the District, servicing offices near Battery Park and Wall Street. Strategically located near the ferry terminal, the hall provides dining options for tourists visiting the Statue of Liberty and commuters from Staten Island.
In an earlier conversation about the location, Urbanspace president Eldon Scott remarked, “FiDi is a vibrant mix of office workers and residents and our proximity to the Stone Street Historic District also draws many tourists to the neighborhood.”
He noted Urbanspace’s excitement in transforming the hall into a hub for people to meet, eat, and make lasting memories: “As we continue to reemerge from the pandemic, we see within our food halls a real desire to socialize with friends and colleagues outside of the office, and certainly outside the apartments and homes we became all too familiar with the last couple of years.”
This desire is made evident by the number of tables and chairs dotted throughout the hall, lining the windows at the Water Street entrance, and clustered in its center.
SFA News Daily spoke with a few vendors about their decision to open with this Urbanspace. Sergio Flores, the 100 Pearl location manager at Bao by Kaya, a Taiwanese street-food restaurant, said, "We want to show Taiwanese food to as many New Yorkers as possible, a food they don't typically get to experience."
The company plans to offer delivery service application capabilities to serve an even wider range of customers in Lower Manhattan. Flores says that, with the support they have received from the hall and customers, Bao by Kaya aspires to open a brick-and-mortar, a dream originally thought impossible when the restaurant was a pop up only eight years earlier.
Leah Sever of The Show Room Bakehouse, a baked treats shop, discussed the bakery’s brick-and-mortar in Brooklyn, and the desire to use Urbanspace to find a new Manhattan audience. The decision to open inside their first Manhattan food hall will facilitate reaching a wider audience both using delivery services, like Bao by Kaya, to reach lower Manhattan, as well as by word of mouth to convert new business to their DTC audience, an active online marketplace.
George Monogioudis, the owner of Grind, an NYC-based coffee shop and roaster, has a straightforward action plan for this location, its first storefront outside of their brick-and-mortar in Hell’s Kitchen: "Our hope with this location is to introduce people to specialty coffee."
Monogioudis talked about offering only two drastically different coffee choices to get people to understand what they like and don't in coffee consumption. Both roasts are medium, but one is washed process, a standard coffee preparation procedure, and the other is a natural process, a unique coffee bean process that tends to favor acidity and fruity notes. Third-wave coffee came later to the U.S. than Europe, where Monogioudis is from, and it is largely dominated by Starbucks, which tends to sacrifice quality for consistency.
“In Greece, where I’m from, coffee is a religion. I want to bring some of that to Manhattan,” he said.
Themed as a new-age diner, ready-to-eat offerings will combine with the coffee experience to elevate the classic Tri-state area staple. A Croque Madame with a poached egg is expected to be one of the treats the shop will pair with cappuccinos.
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