Comfort food joint Chat ‘n Chew shut its doors this week after 22 years in the neighborhood, but the owner plans to reopen it as an Italian restaurant.
The diner-style eatery at 10 E. 16th St. near Fifth Avenue will relaunch in two weeks as Little Sal’s, said Ethan Silverman, son of owner Andrew Silverman.
“[Chat ‘n Chew] lost some of it’s energy, and now we’re getting it back,” Ethan Silverman said. “It’s going to be a Chat ‘n Chew on steroids. It’ll have traditional Italian food like chicken parm, eggplant parm and pastas.”
Silverman compared the concept of Little Sal’s to New York City restaurants like Sauce and Parm, where it’s “casual and family oriented — selling wine by the glass and not the bottle,” he said.
Andrew Silverman also co-owns Flatiron’s City Crab and Barbounia restaurants.
Little Sal’s will open as a pop-up in two weeks for a test run, and may remain open permanently depending on how well it does, Silverman said.
As for Chat ‘n Chew’s abrupt closure, Silverman said the team had known that they would be closing for a while, but hadn’t made it public.
“If people took a look at the place recently, they’d see that the staff was slowly kind of diminishing,” Silverman said.
“We’ve been in Union Square for a while, and we’re going to come back with energy,” he continued. “But [the concept] will be [in] keeping with the people who work and live in the neighborhood.”
The first headquarters of the NAACP, was at 69 5th Ave., where the New School building is now. From 1920 to 1938, they flew this flag whenever they received a report of a lynching anywhere in America. This view, which hasn’t changed much, is looking south on 5th Ave.
Next week (July 16 to July 20), Mechanical equipment deliveries and work on them will continue at the 17th and 18th floor levels. Deliveries for the internal systems of the building have been ongoing and will continue. Curtain wall installation will continue.
The following week (July 23 to July 27), we will be working on the machine room levels on the 17th and 18th floors. Deliveries for the internal systems of the building have been ongoing and will continue, although they should not greatly affect the flow of pedestrian and road traffic.
This weekend the site will be open on Saturday, July 14th for superstructure related activities between the work hours of 7AM and 5PM as permitted by the City. To control noise levels within the site, work activities will be limited to the placement of formwork and concrete, plumbing and electrical work, rebar for concrete placement, using the crane and equipment to support all activities. Safety horns are used, and required by law, to coordinate lifting with the crane and to alert the workers of the danger overhead. We have directed the operators to limit the use of horns to one short sounding and to use the crane later in the day so as to avoid any excess noise.
The New York Times reports on the new busway and the potentially positive effect it has on real estate prices, although it seems certain not everyone would agree.
This rather fascinating report on pedestrian foot traffic in the area reveals that sidewalk crowds are up 53% in the past five years. If you’ve ever walked past Whole Foods at 6 PM, this will come as no surprise. In fact, Whole Foods is probably mainly responsible for the surge.
If you like Thai food, Pranakhon on University Place is VERY good.
