Great News for Boardwalk Concessions!
October 20, 2011
Two Coney Island Boardwalk icons
set to sign eight-year leases after
escaping eviction
BY Erin Durkin
DAILY NEWS WRITER
Thursday, October 20th 2011, 4:00 AM
Ruby’s Bar and Grill on the Coney Boardwalk is reportedly poised to sign a new lease.
At least two popular Coney Island businesses that had faced eviction are now reportedly set to return to the Boardwalk for the long haul.
Ruby’s Bar and Grill and Paul’s Daughter – among the establishments amusement giant Zamperla had moved to boot from the seaside strip – are now poised to sign eight-year leases in the coming weeks, sources said.
It’s also possible Beer Island and Cha Cha’s will be allowed to stay open, though those talks are more tentative.
Zamperla reversed course after a deal for a Miami-based company to take over the space occupied by Ruby’s and Paul’s Daughter and open a diner and a large international food court fell apart.
The Miami Beach hotel and restaurant operators who opened ice cream shop Coney’s Cones this year clashed with Zamperla over the rent for the rest of the strip, sources said. The ice cream shop is expected to stay open.
A Ruby’s rep said the long-term lease will allow the owners to finally give the beat-up 77-year-old bar a makeover, while keeping its honky-tonk charm.
“While we’ll be modernized, we won’t necessarily be sanitized,” the source said. “The reason we haven’t done it in the past is we’ve been on a year-to-year lease for the past eight or nine years. Now that we know that we have some stability…we’re prepared to put in substantial capital improvements that will improve upon the Ruby’s everyone knows and loves.”
Zamperla, an Italian company that runs the new Coney amusement parks Luna Park and Scream Zone, moved to evict the longtime businesses and replace them with glitzier attractions after taking over the land from the city last year.
The businesses fought back in court and won a one-year reprieve, but they had to forfeit the right to sue, so this year was expected to finally be the end of the line.
Beer Island owner Anthony Berlingieri said he hasn’t been offered a deal but plans to talk to Zamperla officials this week.
“The bottom line is that instead of running around trying to find people who think they know what they’re doing, they happen to have…us here who know what we’re doing. That’s why we’re back year after year,” Berlingieri said.
“We’ve been the ones who have survived Coney Island through thick and thin,” he said. “Hopefully this is the wake-up call…Don’t you think the people who have been in Coney Island for all these years have an idea what it takes to make it here?”
###
THIS IS TERRIFIC NEWS!!!!
CONEY ISLAND 