The simmering Bryant Park Grill saga boiled over as a court gave the park’s manager the green light to boot the Grill’s current operator, and the company that was slated to take over the iconic space with Jean-Georges Vongerichten bowed out of lease negotiations, Realty Check has learned.
A state Supreme Court judge ruled this month that the nonprofit Bryant Park Corporation can evict the restaurant operated by Michael Weinstein’s Ark Restaurants.
“We are very happy with the decision,” said Corporation lawyer Gil Feder.
But Weinstein told The Post he plans to appeal, which could give him as much as another year at the helm of the popular, indoor-outdoor venue that’s one of the nation’s top-grossing places with $25 million in annual revenue.
Bryant Park Corporation president Daniel Biederman declined to renew Ark’s lease when it expired last year, and planned to replace it with superchef Vongerichten and Seaport Entertainment Group, which owns 25% of his eatery empire.
But in a second twist, the plan that was widely reported in the spring of 2025 is kaput.
“Seaport Entertainment Group is no longer involved in Bryant Park Grill in an operating capacity as originally contemplated. However, we continue to own 25% of Jean-Georges Management,” an SEG spokesperson told The Post on Wednesday.
Vongerichten’s CEO Lois Freedman confirmed, “If/when we sign [a lease], we will be the operators, not Seaport Entertainment.”
Biederman said of the Grill’s future, “Bryant Park is thrilled to welcome a new modern restaurant concept, to be announced soon, in a space so many New Yorkers and visitors know and love.”
Michael McMahon, a retired former real estate asset manager and now a consultant to Biederman, clarified, “We’re negotiating with Jean-George for a management agreement” — unlike the earlier plan for SEG to lease the property.
Further confusing things, McMahon said that although SEG “stepped away” from lease talks, it “might be coming back in with a capital investment” in the project, although there are numerous “complications and considerations” to work out.
Although the long-term outlook is murkier than ever, the glass-wrapped dining venue will continue to draw locals, tourists and office workers without interruption this summer.
Bryant Park Grill is one of the city’s strangest, long-running restaurant lease battles.
When his lease wasn’t renewed last year, Weinstein vowed to continue running the Grill and two outdoor cafes – as he had done for 30 years — and Biederman wasn’t able to boot him as the case wended its way through the courts.
Weinstein fumed that Biederman ran the park as a “personal fiefdom” and griped that Vongerichten and his partners would pay a minimum $1.2 million a year in rent compared with Ark’s $3 million.
A flurry of suits and counter-suits included Weinstein’s claims that Biederman ran a “flawed” process to select a new operator that was designed to bring in Michelin-starred Vongerichten. Weinstein, then 81, was also allegedly a victim of age discrimination. Vongerichten was 68 at the time.
Weinstein’s suit targeted the Bryant Park Corporation, the Seaport group, the city Parks Department and even the New York Public Library, whose main branch abuts the Grill and has an advisory say.
But Judge Anar Rathod Patel said last year Ark and Weinstein were just sore losers over a “competitive outcome” they didn’t like.
This month, Patel affirmed that “ejectment” of Ark could proceed and dismissed Weinstein’s age-discrimination claim.
But she agreed with his claim that Biederman was in breach of contract — opening the door to a separate trial later this year over damages, “which will be substantial,” Weinstein said.
