The Soup Opera Plot at Tavern-on-the-Green
Five of the odd couplings planning to bid on the expiring lease for Tavern-on-the-Green, with or without the right to use that name, have already tired to enlist David Rockwell as the desiger. Among them of course, are Penny and Peter Glazier who reportedly are walking down the aisle with Donald Trump on this deal. It was Rockwell and his team who came up with the wild red and black design with photos of old time burlesque stars for the Glaziers’ Strip House chain as well as the gorgeous 40’s look that gave Monkey Bar its early glamour. In fact he’s been dreaming up the fantasy of Glazier restaurants since Bridgewaters opened at the South Street Seaport with boats hanging from the ceiling. By the way, Peter Glazier has his doubts about whether Jennifer LeRoy owns the Tavern name as she claims (even though she’s opened a Tavern-on-the-Green near Palm Beach.) “We own the name Monkey Bar in 49 states he said, but we lease it in New York. It remains to be seen who owns the name.”
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Tavern-on-the-Greenery? Green Acres Grill? Slow Food in the Park? Tavern-in-the-Rambles? What will you call it, all you gladiators lusting after Tavern-on-the Green? Jennifer LeRoy confidently sees another 30 years of a LeRoy family reign in Central Park, where she owns the fixtures, the Baccarat chandeliers, the ceiling, the bird baths, “everything,” and provocatively, even the name.
Busy booking parties at her new baby, Tavern-on-the-Green in West Palm Beach, Warner LeRoy’s chosen heir, 29 now, seven years at the helm, feels the heat of all those hard-breathing suitors lusting after her expiring license. But she is also heir to Warner’s unquenchable optimism and tenacity and is primed for the battle, bubbling with confidence. “Will they really want it without the name? They say I’m making a deal with Donald Trump to keep Tavern, but that’s not true,” says Jennifer.
“When all those guys see what’s it’s like, they may not want it. Tavern is tremendously complicated, with a 10,000 square foot kitchen, 600 employees and a union house. It was a sheep’s farm with a flat roof that leaks. It still leaks. It may be one of the biggest grossing restaurants in America but it costs a fortune to run and it doesn’t make that much profit.” What with neighborhood complaints, the Park limits her to only four outside tented parties a year, she disclosed. Last year it cost $35 million to gross $38 million, she told me. The lease expires in 2009 but the Parks Department expects to get out a Request for Proposals (RVP) soon to give suitors time to fluff up their bids.
“A new owner will have to redo it,” says Jennifer. “I don’t think the Parks Department will want someone doing it on the cheap. It’s Central Park – the city’s greatest landmark. We will work with the Park. We’re willing to up the percentage of profits we pay. I’ll do everything I can to get it back.”
“She has Warner’s showmanship,” her mother Kay LeRoy says, “She’s a wonderful problem solver. She knows how to get people to do more. She can fix an air conditioner, climb a ladder and she looks spectacular.” That’s a mom talking, of course, in this case a mom still running the gift shop she created years ago. Those who like to think the two women are feuding should know they live on the same floor of a building in Tribeca.
I located Jennifer, a passionate equestrian, on the grounds of the winter horse show in Wellington, Florida, where the Hamptons’ Classic horsey crowd settles for the winter. (“You should see the private jets,” says Kay. “When it rains they go out to buy a car.”)
“I was practically born at Tavern,” Jennifer said. “I could have been born in the kitchen.” Indeed, Warner LeRoy’s fantasy transformation of the old sheep stable opened in 1976 and Jenny arrived two years later. “That’s where I started at 17…In the kitchen. My first job was to stand and watch and be shocked for three months and not be killed by the traffic. One day the expeditor walked out. Someone said, ‘Get in there Jennifer.’ So I took the microphone and that was it.” She was 22 when Warner died and left the business to her. Then came 9/11 and later, the death of her brother Max. “I keep trucking along. Life’s too short…you have to be confident. Passionate.”
Jennifer says she is close to a deal to build another Tavern-in-the Green in San Francisco in the old Sony Building across from the Museum of Modern Art. The stained glass ceiling Warner salvaged from Maxwell’s Plum will go there. Her dream is a Tavern in Las Vegas, “But I haven’t found the right spot. I get offers all the time.” And Jennifer remains a competitive rider. Her 150 seat Tavern overlooks the Florida horse show grounds, reflecting light from stained glass pieces and chandeliers that came from the aborted Russian Tea Room. Does it seem like something is missing? Romance, perhaps? “It might be happening right now,” she confides. “I’ve found a wonderful man. It’s very recent. He’s a rider too, and a businessman. So we have a common passion.”
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Tavern-on-the-Green is coming up for bids and the gladiators are salivating. “Yes, Alan Stillman and I have talked about doing something together at Tavern,” says Nick Valenti (the man who spun off Restaurant Associates to emerge as Patina Group and buy all of Stillman’s out-of-town restaurant). Dean Poll, the Long Island restaurateur who brags of boosting the Loeb Boat House take from $8 million to $18 million in 2007, hopes he has an inside-the-park advantage over all the usual suspects competing for Tavern’s expiring license, because “there are not many Saturday, Sundays or afternoons available in my party room. I could really fill that place.”
The Parks Department has promised to get the Request for Proposal (RFP) out soon to give suitors time to puff up their acts, doodle their plans, maybe give the winner time to book a few parties before the license expires December 31, 2009. Industry gossips see Danny Meyer, Drew Nieporent (who spent some of his youth working at Tavern) and maybe even the Ciprianis hungering for this landmark trophy run by Jennifer LeRoy since the death of her father Warner LeRoy in 2001. Valenti suspects that it could turn into a real estate deal with Donald Trump of Jerry Speyer “trying to noodle the city into a deal,” or even a hotel chain.
The prize, one of America’s biggest grossing restaurants, paid the city about $1.2 million in 2006 compared to the Boat House’s $2.4, according to David Selfman in the NY Post. That’s because Tavern pays 3.5% of its income based on a deal made in 1980 against 15% negotiated with Poll in 2000, Selfman quotes Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe.
I caught Valenti in a museful mood. “Running Tavern. It’s an intriguing thing, it’s a super spot. I don’t think there’s anything that beats lunch in that courtyard on a nice day. They even have parking. But people in midtown don’t want to leave midtown for lunch. It’s about catering. And I bet it needs total refurbishing. A lot has happened since Warner restored it. And of course, the neighbors are very difficult. They look out their windows on Central Park West at the park and if you leave a garbage can uncovered they can see it.”