“The biggest reaction we always got on the townhouse was how cozy and comforting and elegant [it was]. The building was 18-feet-wide. We had a lot of restrictions. Over the 20 years, I literally tore it apart three times and put it back together. But physically you didn’t have any more space. It was really a 65-seat restaurant, 75 if you really stretched it.”
“When we moved to [the new] location we had the ability to build an incredible wine list with storage on premise. In the townhouse, (pictured above), it was always a struggle, because we had so much wine off premise. Logistically it was a nightmare. A lot of restaurants in Manhattan have the same issue. Now we have the luxury of having on-site storage of almost 20,000 bottles.”