An upscale Midtown restaurant doesn’t seem ready to let Gary Barnett devour its home.
Philippe Chow, a 20-year fixture of 33 E. 60th St., has let a key deadline come and go without vacating the building, which Barnett, president of Extell Development Co., wants to bulldoze to make way for a tall new tower.
According to court filings, Extell informed Chow Dec. 19, one day after it went into contract to buy the site, that the developer would terminate the restaurant’s lease March 24 and that the Chinese eatery had until that date to clear out.
But the restaurant didn’t shut down at the Monday deadline. In fact, it had been open all week as of Thursday night, continuing to serve the Beijing-style prawns, chicken and ribs for which it is known to “the upper echelon of the entertainment industry and New York’s social set,” according to its website.
But Extell, which also plans to raze four surrounding properties on the block—Nos. 33, 37 and 39 E. 60th St. as well as 655 Madison Ave., all of which appear vacant—seems ready to apply maximum financial pressure to get Chow to leave.
On Wednesday, three days after the threatened closing date, Extell sued Chow’s parent, Merchant Hospitality, to recoup allegedly skipped rent payments and collect penalties for its staying on. For those supposed violations, Merchant owes Extell at least $1.4 million, plus attorney’s fees, says the suit, which was filed in Manhattan state Supreme Court.
Specifically, Merchant allegedly owes $390,000 in back rent, all of it covering months before Extell owned the property, and also $978,000 in fines for overstaying its lease, which was signed in 2005 and which was supposed to run till 2027, filings show. For its berth between Park and Madison avenues, Chow pays a rent of $61,000 a month, according to the filings.
A large and longtime restaurant group, Merchant owns a second Manhattan Chow site, in Chelsea, and three others nationally, plus one overseas, in Kuwait. The company’s other holdings include Watermark Bar on Pier 15 in the Seaport neighborhood, Merchants in the West Village and the Black Hound in Battery Park City.
Reached by email, company owner Abraham Merchant said he was prepared to fight back. ”The case is without merit, and we will respond in the same forum,” he said.
It’s not the first time Merchant has become ensnared in a lease dispute at the address. Last year the previous owner of No. 33, the Goldman family, sued its tenant over allegedly unpaid rent, a move that came as the family was likely negotiating to sell the building to Barnett.
But Merchant denied the allegations and added that his firm had never been informed that it was in arrears before being hauled into court. Extell appears to have folded that case into its own claim. The Goldmans sold Barnett Nos. 33-39 for $103 million in a deal that closed last month.
Richard Cohn, the attorney who handled that previous case for Merchant, also did not return a call. And David Grill, the attorney with Rivkin Radler who filed the suit on Extell’s behalf, was unavailable.
