Since September 15, the Public Theater at 425 Lafayette Street has held three places to eat, drink or catch a show. Joe's Pub is still downstairs where it has been since 1998. The Astor now fills the theater's old dining room on the mezzanine. Bar Torino has opened in the lobby. A few blocks south, NoHo's other headline changes are in a different state. One is a corner waiting on an opening date. Another is a whiskey distillery that has stopped pouring for visitors. A third is a street still being rebuilt. For now, the most finished thing in the neighborhood is a single building on Astor Place.
What Moved Into the Library's Old Room
The Public's previous restaurant, the Library, is gone. Eater NY reported that its replacement, the Astor, opened on Tuesday, September 15, with a wood-paneled dining room and bar modeled on the taverns and supper clubs of old New York.
The ownership group is mostly people who already work in the building. According to Eater's fall preview, the partners are Serge Becker, Josh Pickard, Paul Salmon and Kevin Abbott, the founding team of Joe's Pub. They are joined by NoHo Hospitality partners Luke Ostrom and Andrew Carmellini, plus managing partners Jersey Katz and Michelle Cunha, all working with the Public Theater. Chef Angel Monge is building the menu with Carmellini. Early dishes include Devilish eggs, steak Diane, and a French mushroom dip with au jus. Darryl Chan runs the cocktails, which riff on martinis, Manhattans and Bijous, and Josh Nadel oversees the wine.
The walls are what set the room apart from the dozen other tavern revivals around town. EV Grieve described the mezzanine space as red banquettes and white tablecloths, with balcony seating and walls hung with posters, photographs, letters and playbills from the Public's archives. Among them are a photograph of Meryl Streep with founder Joseph Papp, a telegram from Jacqueline Kennedy, a handwritten note from Samuel Beckett, and gold records from "A Chorus Line." Around the island bar, a mural by André Carrilho shows 32 people connected to the Public, among them Lin-Manuel Miranda, Alicia Keys, David Byrne, Ntozake Shange, Suzan-Lori Parks, Sam Shepard and Tony Kushner.
So the restaurant tells the theater's own history using the theater's own collection. A pre-show dinner there used to mean eating somewhere that happened to be inside the building. Now the room is part of the institution.
Downstairs, and the Room That Didn't Change
Bar Torino is the second new space. It sits in the lobby, with more seats under the mezzanine. Eater calls it a snacky cafe and notes that it is a second location; the first is in Hudson Yards.
Joe's Pub stays as it was. Eater's preview says Carmellini's group runs it as a separate space that will remain unchanged. That matters for anyone who has been going for years. The theater added two rooms around its music venue and left the venue alone. EV Grieve's report, citing press materials, frames the openings as the next step in a partnership that started in 1998, when Becker, Pickard, Salmon and Abbott launched Joe's Pub with the theater.
Put the three together and one address on Lafayette now covers a quick drink, a full dinner and a late set without stepping back onto Astor Place.
One Building, Late October
The Public Theater's October calendar shows how that could work over the next few weeks at Joe's Pub:
- October 14 and 15: the New York Arab American Comedy Festival, with shows at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.
- October 21: Migguel Anggelo, ICONS – Latin Rhythms.
- October 22: Vidura Bandara Rajapaksa, The Paradise Gothic Tour and The Best Show Possible.
- October 26: Ethan Iverson, The Beatles, aka Pepperland.
- October 27 through 30: The Bowery Boys, Ghost Stories of Old New York, with 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. sets.
The Bowery Boys run is the one built for the season. Four nights of old New York ghost stories in the week before Halloween, in a building whose new restaurant is styled after old New York taverns, is about as on-theme as an October gets. The same calendar lists the theater's Astor Season productions, among them Good Time Charlie, How Shakespeare Saved My Life, Triumph, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, We'll See and The Verge. Check exact performance dates with the Public directly.
Down Lafayette, a Corner Still Waiting
Walk south toward Great Jones Street and things are less settled. Atla, Enrique Olvera's casual Mexican restaurant at 372 Lafayette, closed after service on Sunday, May 31, after about ten years on the corner.
Olvera's team is replacing it themselves. In July, Time Out New York reported that Olvera and the Casamata team would open Bar Cosme there this fall. Time Out describes it as a nightlife-focused restaurant and cocktail bar built around the after-dark energy of Cosme, their Flatiron restaurant. Plans call for a full sharing menu, with raw and lightly cooked dishes, housemade tortillas and salsas, and food from an asador, the live-fire grill. Sebastián Tollius, who has worked at Eleven Madison Park and Clemente Bar, will run cocktails, and the Mexico City firm Taller ADG is redesigning the space. Eater's September 8 preview still listed Bar Cosme as a fall opening, with no date.
Wake and Late is next door. EV Grieve spotted the signage in June, on the block between Bond and Great Jones, in the space Honeybrains left in February. The Los Angeles shop focuses on breakfast and lunch burritos and specialty coffee, and it was also expected to open this fall.
As of mid-October, we have not found any report that either place has opened, and neither has announced an opening date. Coverage also lists both storefronts at 372 Lafayette, so confirm the exact door before heading over. If both open as planned, this block will cover breakfast through late night. For now, it is two papered-over storefronts on the same block.
On Broadway, a Tasting Room Goes Dark
The other big change this fall points the opposite way from what's happening at the Public. Great Jones Distilling Co., at 686 Broadway, has closed its visitor center. Crain's New York Business reported the news on October 6 under the line "It's last call for Great Jones Distilling Co."
Robb Report, in a story syndicated on Yahoo, called it Manhattan's only whiskey distillery. It reported that a state WARN notice posted October 2 lists 26 permanent layoffs as of December 7, with "economic" given as the reason. The parent company, Proximo, said the visitor center would close "until further notice" after a review of beverage industry trends and market conditions. It added that Great Jones Whiskey and Black Dirt Distillery products would remain available online and in select retailers. The distillery's own website now says the same thing.
For people nearby, the practical loss is a place to go, more than a bottle. The Empire Rye and the bourbons are still sold elsewhere, but the tours, the tasting room and a distillery a short walk from Bond Street are gone. No successor for the space has been named in the coverage we found.
Set side by side, NoHo's three food and drink stories this fall sit at very different stages. The Public's rooms are open and serving, the Lafayette and Great Jones corner has an announcement but no date, and 686 Broadway has closed with nothing announced to follow.
The Street Under All of It
Lafayette Street itself is also mid-change. A DOT presentation to Community Board 2 on March 24 proposed turning the corridor's one-way protected bike lane into an 11-foot two-way protected lane along Lafayette and Fourth Avenue. It also scheduled resurfacing of Lafayette, Astor Place and East 8th Street for late April. CB2's May resolution recorded that by May 18, DOT had repaved Lafayette from Shinbone Alley to East 9th Street, repaved Astor Place between Broadway and Lafayette, milled Lafayette down to Houston, and changed one-way traffic and signs at Astor Place and Lafayette.
More work is coming. DOT expects to build concrete pedestrian islands in late 2026 and 2027. CB2 asked the agency to return with revised plans this fall and again after nine months to review the trial lane change. DOT's current-projects page still lists the package as proposed. Expect construction near the Public's front door to continue into next year.
The Bowery edge is changing too. EV Grieve reported on October 5 that demolition had started at the northwest corner of Bowery and Great Jones for a planned 25-story building with ground-floor retail. The former Bowery Market at 348 Bowery came down first, and 350 and 352 Bowery are next. The Public is the only one of these projects that is open and running today.
Questions about how changes like these affect what your NoHo home is worth are what Miller Schackman works through with neighbors every week. Before your next night at the Public, you can get your free home valuation and see how your block is holding up while Lafayette Street changes.
