With just 24 hours left in their Kickstarter Campaign, Ocean Avenue residents Justine and Tom are planning a new restaurant "Mountain," which has the tagline Apothecary Kitchen. You got to see the video to hear it described - it's very unusual but I think I get it! They're both acupuncturists and herbal experts, Tom owned and was chef for a successful '90s West Village restaurant (Miracle Grill) AND they plan to have performances and use fresh and healthy stuff.
So they're locals, and that would be enough for a Q post. BUT they're also negotiating as I write this to move into the old Chinese Restaurant next to the Associated on Franklin near Carroll (903 Franklin). So it's South Franklin, not the much-hyped Franklin north of Eastern Parkway. True commercial pioneers you could call them I suppose, since that stretch is a bit drab at the moment.
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Since they're talking money with the landlord, it looks like they'll need closer to $30,000 than the nearly $23,000 they've raised through this campaign. If you like what you see, please contribute to the creation of the very Zen joint.
Kickstarter:
7 comments:
Wow - I did not know of the Miracle Grill connection. The stories I could tell you the times I spent in their back garden...
Good luck to them, hope they raise their money. But for us, we'd rather invest in a restaurant that's closer to home and one our neighborhood of PLG can claim is truly ours which is really important to economic development. So many people were willing and ready to invest in the Farm restaurant that almost came here, I've been surprised there hasn't been a campaign to attract another restaurant and chef with a similar offer to put up some of the money.
The Farm was looking for $1 million. That's just plain insulting - there is no personal risk on their part. These guys are local residents following their dream - and the amount of money they're looking for is reasonable.
I already patronize the restaurants on Franklin above EP quite a lot - I'm very happy to stop short of it, especially for a place this unique.
And from what I understand, they really looked very hard for a place in PLG, but between the poor quality of a lot of the commercial spaces out there, which would have required extensive tenant-financed renovation, and many landlords' (understandable) hesitancy to rent to start-up food businesses (something like 90% of new restaurants don't last two years), there really wasn't anything available.
Those Farmer people had that weird cultish pledge that they wanted people to sign, too. Cash and religious commitments required!
Like anon, I too am more likely to contribute to a campaign for a restaurant in PLG.
Sounds like a cool place but we'd prefer to support a restaurant that would be located in PLG not in an adjacent neighborhood. Have plenty of those already to patronize but not much here. Too bad residents had to look outside of PLG for a space- did they even consider placing their restaurant somewhere on Flatbush or Rogers? Or ParkSide? So many options...
I had commented at 7:21pm. It's not that we wouldn't patronize restaurants on Franklin, we go all over NYC to dine. It's about what we'd personally invest in and we'd only ever invest in a restaurant if it were in PLG because its existence would attract other new restaurants and amenities. That is crazy about The Farm having a pledge. Just more crazy on top of the crazy of their needing a million dollars and investing none of their own money.
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