Booted Bryant Park Grill operator Michael Weinstein accused the nonprofit that manages the New York City park of age discrimination for dumping him in favor of famed chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten, according to a new court filing.
Weinstein’s Ark Restaurants has leased the handsome, glass-enclosed grill for 30 years from the Bryant Park Corporation. With $25 million in annual revenue, it’s one of the nation’s highest-grossing eateries.
But Daniel Biederman, who heads the Bryant Park Corporation, didn’t renew Weinstein and his Ark Restaurants’ lease, which expired in April.
He tapped Seaport Entertainment Group, a hospitality company in which multi-Michelin star holder, Vongerichten is a partner, to replace Ark.
Weinstein is 81 years old, while Vongerichten is 68.
“By Dan Biederman’s own admission, he used Mr. Weinstein’s age against him from the beginning of this process,” said Ark’s lawyer, Anthony Genovesi, in an amended version of a complaint Ark filed in Manhattan Supreme Court in April. “What BPC did is discrimination plain and simple.”
The expanded complaint in the bitter legal feud also states, “From the beginning of the [request for proposals] process, Biederman suggested that Mr. Weinstein’s age, and ‘succession’ issues are reasons not to renew Ark Restaurants’ leases.”
Biederman, 71, countered to The Post: “I never said he was too old to keep the Grill running.
“It’s an 18-year lease,” he added. “We asked all four applicants, how would the restaurant continue if they got hit by a bus?”
In an April letter to Judge Anar Rathod Patel, Biederman’s lawyer, Gil Feder, wrote: “Michael Weinstein is more than 80 years old, and his successor, Mr. Weinstein’s 31-year-old son, lacks sufficient experience to inspire confidence that Ark can sustain its operations in the long term.”
Weinstein sued the Parks Department, the BPC, the Seaport Group, and even the New York Public Library which abuts the restaurant and has an advisory say, over what Weinstein called an “improper” and “defective” bidding process.
Patel rejected Ark’s request for an injunction to block its ouster, writing in April, “Mere dissatisfaction with a competitive outcome does not constitute bad faith.”
Meanwhile, in one of the most curious battles the city’s restaurant world has seen, Weinstein continues to run the Grill and an alfresco cafe despite the lease expiration.
Biederman might move to evict Ark “very soon,” his lawyer, Gil Feder, told The Post on Thursday.
He added, though, that it might take several more months.
“We must go through a legal process,” Feder said, which includes responding to Weinstein’s latest court filing.
The holdup means the Grill will remain open through the busy summer season. It will likely have to close for up to a year for renovations when Vongerichten’s company takes the keys, The Post previously reported.
