Zocalo in the GCT food court may soon be replaced by a Shake Shack. (Photo by flickr user Crashworks)
In the basement food court of Grand Central Terminal sits a restaurant called Zocalo. Like many of the old guard food business there, it is an overpriced, mediocre spot albeit one that features some decent margaritas and otherwise uninspiring Mexican food. If the MTA had its legal druthers, Zocalo would be long gone, and Danny Meyer’s Shake Shack would be on the way in. That is, at least, what was supposed to happen.
Zocalo, however, has something else in mind, and the restaurant will not go quietly into the night. Already in unlawful possession of the space, owner Robert Shapiro has filed suit against the MTA, Crain’s New York recently reported. Adrianne Pasquarelli had more:
In the case, Zócalo alleges that the “bidding process [for retail space in Grand Central] is corrupted.” The restaurant is also protesting the eviction notice it received in February, and hopes to stay in the space as long as possible…
In January 2011, when the MTA put out a request for proposals, Zócalo submitted a bid to stay where it has been since 1998, but failed to win it. Shortly after, it was announced that Shake Shack, the popular burger and ice cream eatery owned by restaurateur Danny Meyer, was planning to move into Zócalo’s spot. Zócalo has been on a month-to-month lease since last fall.
“Zócalo is desperately pursuing any possible means to remain in possession of space it no longer has the legal right to occupy, contrary to the legal rights of the MTA and Shake Shack,” said an MTA spokesman. He noted that a civil court in a landlord-tenant proceeding already ruled that the Mexican eatery is in unlawful possession of the space, since its lease has expired.
The Zocalo owner claims that Shack Shake operates more locations than permitted under the RFP, and thus, the winning bid is ineligible. This is unlikely to be a particularly convincing argument though as Zocalo fights its eviction.
Meanwhile, as Crain’s notes, the MTA is not only going to have to pay costs to fight this legal battle but is losing money on the rent. Zocalo is paying an annual minimum rent of $336,698 while Shake Shack’s lease starts at $435,000 a year with escalators to $567,000. Meyer’s group will also pay a percentage of gross sales as well. And so Midtown Manhattan and GCT travelers will have to wait a little bit longer for their burgers, fries and custards.
21 comments
How many old guard Mexican restaurants are there in GCT, exactly?
The food at Zocalo is terrible and expensive. The only reason for its existence is to provide margaritas to-go for Metro-North riders. To honor Zocalo’s death, get two of ’em (with any optional flavor of your choice), get on the next train to Poughkeepsie, and sit on the left side of the car so you can take in the sunset on the Hudson through the trip up north.
“To honor Zocalo’s death….”
Heh.
Shake Shack is certainly overpriced and is overrated as well, in my opinion. If we have to have a chain burger restaurant at that spot, I’d rather it be Five Guys.
Five Guys? Hell no. Better to bring Bobby’s Burger Pallace in there. Shake Shack is also good & NOT overrated by any means, even if it’s a bit pricy.
Better than all these guys, upscale and local too is DuMont Burger. Let them set up in GCT and promote a good local business.
Love DuMont. I’m a huge fan. But as I’m sure you know, it’s about the money. There’s no way DuMont’s going to shell out half a million bucks a year for this.
Ug, not for me. It’s a subjective thing of course, but I found Five Guys to be overcooked (they will only do medium or worse), greasy and generally gross. There was also no beer at Five Guys, at least not when I was there.
I try to stay with healthy stuff, but Shake Shack can be entertaining, sort of like what McDonald’s would be if it served food. The downside is their stuff should absolutely not be eaten on a train; it’s drippy and gooey. Figure how much you’d like to be next to someone eating like that.
I do like the margarita at sunset idea though.
Five Guys is awful
Esp the seriously oversalted fries
Better the White Castle than Five Guys
I like Five Guys, but their design/business plan definitely would clash with the lower concourse (and a hyper-busy store generates a ton of grease/smoke residue and peanut shells. Odds are the Grand Central cleaning crew wouldn’t be too fond of the store either).
Shake Shack is the ‘trendy’ burger joint in the area right now, but strike me as one of those places that may expand their locations too fast, too quickly. But they shouldn’t have any problem for the moment making the rent down there, even if a few years from now, when a new pretty burger comes along to wow the masses (and mayor TransFat is out of office) they may not be the same sort of draw for the size space they’re renting from the MTA.
Won’t a Shake Shack produce as much grease and smoke as a Five Guys would?
Five Guys’ standard store design has no separation between the cooking area and the dining area other than the counter, which the grill runs paralell to, so the smoke and grease are free to roam where they please (and walking into a Five Guys on a rainy afternoon can be about like stepping on the ice at Madison Square Garden if you’re not careful). Shake Shack’s layout (albeit based on a far smaller store sample), seems to put a few more things between the cooking area and the rest of the building, though working inside a limited and unique space like GCT, design modifications away from the standard ‘look’ (as with the Apple store uptairs) are always possible.
There used to be a Five Guys in the Queens Center Mall food court, to the left of Noodle House. I think it only lasted for more or less a year. But if they were able to operate in a mall, in theory, they should be able to work in the Grand Central confines.
(I wonder why Five Guys didn’t work in that area of Queens. There was another Five guys at the Rego Park Center which is now closed as well. And for a short time, both locations were even open concurrently. Now the closest location is on Woodhaven Boulevard near the Trader Joe’s, but Elmhurst/Rego Park definitely has more foot traffic.)
Relating to your post, I have observed that the layout of most Five Guys operations I’ve visited is like a long and thin assembly line, both in food preparation and in customer queues, more pronounced than other restaurants. If the operations of a Five Guys cannot conform to a standard restaurant kitchen, then that’s a legitimate minus in Grand Central. The cashiers also shout out whenever burgers need to be prepared. (“TWO PATTIES!!!!”) I do like Shake Shack’s system of notifying customers of a prepared order via remote devices, whereas Five Guys’ employees once again shout out numbers. In Grand Central, the shouting would be really annoying.
Another factor that would not work in Five Guys’ favor is that they have several restaurants in Midtown and relatively many locations, including one a block from Grand Central. Shake Shack has few locations, and by comparison, Five Guys is by far the aggressor in expansion.
I did eat at a Five Guys in MetroTech tonight. That may be why I was in the mood for this rant.
Five Guys is a franchise & the company that held that area development right may not have known what they were doing.
I actually really like Zocalo. Their steak sandwich and fries are delicious! Sometimes I feel a little self-conscious smelling up the train car, though.
yes i’ve eaten at zocalo and thought it was just fine.
shake shack has slow service and a manufactured ‘scene’, don’t like it at all.
I don’t know anything about landlord-tenant law, so I’m wondering about this, and I don’t know if this is legal. Does the MTA, as landlord, require a tenant to earn a certain amount of revenue (or paying customers), based on the amount of passing foot traffic the location receives? If an establishment earns below the threshold, the MTA would have the right to look for another tenant. The threshold would also be tied to train passenger counts at GCT. This seems to be plausible for shopping malls, where I have seen establishments move to different mall spaces.
That’s the taubman moddle you are describing. FYI Taubman owns Stamford Town Center & The Mall @ Short Hills in the NYC area.
Gotta come to Zocalo’s defence here – I think their food is fresh and delicious. Just stopped there the other day to eat some shrimp taco and it was one of the best I’ve had outside BLT Fish, and for only $8.95! I was actually expecting quality to be much lower and was pleasantly surprised. Their chips and salsa were good and free, and Mexican food is way healthier than Shake Shack, which is really just junk food in disguise.
I don’t want to get involved in the burger debate upthread, but I’m curious: in what way, exactly, does Zocalo claim the bidding process was “corrupted”? Shake Shack is going to be paying a *lot* more for the space than Zocalo is, which would seem to be a perfectly valid reason to lease to them instead.
[…] at end of April paving the way for Shake Shack to open, Crain’s New York reports today. After numerous legal challenges that failed and a bankruptcy declaration last fall, Zocalo and its owners decided to comply with a […]