March 10, 2017 By Christian Murray
A restaurant offering pizza and Italian dishes is slated to open on the ground floor at Hunters Point South Commons.
The restaurant, to be located at 1-50 50th Avenue, will face Center Boulevard and will have a bar as well as offer seating for about 65 patrons, according to the owner who spoke at a Community Board 2 committee meeting Wednesday.
The venue will be called Piatto and will be open seven days from 11 am through 11pm. The operators were given the thumbs up for a liquor license by the community board.
The opening date was not disclosed.
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I’d take another Italian over a vacant lot any day…
A restaurant, or fast food wrapped around a drinking hole? The money is in the alcohol. The nabe is saturated in liquor and beer; the ferry landing even features a beer/wine hall disguised as a coffee dispenser, with wine coolers at a table outside last summer, that anyone could buy…have a sangria, sonny? No ID check next to a play field.
Now, pizza with the next drink, a drunk food party until eleven pm.
@dana Pls go back to protesting outdoor seating at your cb2 board meetings.
Some people like to have a good time. It’s weird, right?
a restaurant making money off alcohol… mind blown…
It’s a business and people are fine having that there.
If you think there are violations, report them and get them fixed. That’s it.
But people want to relax in the sun with a drink around other people… what will people think next…
When did the hood go from embracing hipster coffee shops to wanting Starbucks?!
Also someone educate me on why cvs >>> the existing Duane reade.
They might be open 24 hours, that’s all I care about. Schlepping up to Vernon at midnight to buy overpriced cold meds at E&I blows.
CVS probably not > necessarily (though the lines at Duane Reade on occasion and some of their prices are ridiculous), but the volume of people on that end of the neighborhood keeps growing and will continue to do so, so the area can support an additional drugstore already and will definitely be able to in the next few years.
there will be also many more buildings being built at Hunters Point South so the entire southern section will have more people so another drugstore is fine. The traffic and amount of people will be a concern but if they spread it out then it might be tolerable.
I’m sure there will be 3 more doggy day cares and 4 more italian restaurants opening too! 😛 Nothing wrong with dogs or italian food!
If you want variety like I do, support the ones we already have to incentivize new people to diversify our neighborhood!
The more buildings on that end is what I meant by the amount of people will be increasing down there. But isn’t supporting the Italian restaurants we already have counter-intuitive to getting more diversity of food? If all the Italian restaurants are busy, doesn’t that just incentivize additional Italian restaurants to open to feed what would seem to be high demand?
Yes, damn those pesky Italians for perfecting the best tasting AND healthiest cuisine on the planet.
Pizza in the water. Mind blown….
Pizza good. Pasta good. Bar good. 11pm good. Non-empty space looking all sad-good
You are very positive and must be one of the new LIC’ers.
How about a Trader Joes or Starbucks in LIC, please!
Multiple Dunkin Donuts, Sweetleafs, Coffeed, Toby’s Estate, and you need a Starbucks? I mean, it will eventually happen but probably up at Court Square first I’d guess.
Can you not survive for 10 minutes without one of your precious chains?
can we have a starbucks or something? Please, Trader Joes, consider opening shop in LIC!
Starbucks is crap. Food Cellar is right down the block too.
I wish that plumbers union would beat it. I assume they pay low taxes or no taxes at all, the office appears to be empty most of the time, and there are very few plumbers living in the neighborhood. That building would make a great Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s. Right now, it does not serve the community at all with exception to the Dentist which is great!
Yes – 100 times yes. When that building was going up, I was hoping for something like that. Of course, it went up in record time since the union was paying for it vs someone else.
Assuming by “went up” you mean was renovated because if I recall correctly they just renovated the old Columbia Loose Leaf building that was there already, which would explain the faster timeline.
Not sure what you have against plumbers haha and how you got to the “fact” that they pay low or no taxes at all. It’s the plumbers union, no one needs to live there or in the area, it’s for the entire city. Not sure how you think it doesn’t serve the community when you just mean it doesn’t serve you or your own interests. Lots of people go there. Private organization with a private landowner. You can’t tell a private citizen/org what they should have within their rights. Because of that, that’s why we don’t have flourishing/bustling vernon blvd because rents are too high and community board telling people what should be on the Blvd instead letting people try out their businesses.
I don’t think a Whole foods or anything commercial with a lot of traffic should go there as that block and surrounding blocks are residential. We do not need foot traffic near more residential areas. Closer to the water like the CVS is going to be and bigger thoroughfares like vernon/Jackson and 48th Ave should be ok as they’re closer to water and where people are going to be.
Think and be rational before you start drinking the haterade. Though I wish Vernon would have more activity but it’s organic growth of not enough varied businesses but then enough people coming at evenings and weekends to keep businesses profitable and staying. Though I prefer not to have Starbucks here, If they open up shop, they should be allowed to be there and compete like everyone else. Any shopping should be closer to Vernon or Jackson as they can handle the traffic and noise better than residential areas.
If you want a Starbucks in Queens then you do not want to be in Queens. The borough is all about small independent businesses and the people who support them. Dunkin Donuts has already infiltrated and they are a complete eyesore and need to go. It’s places like Sweetleaf, LIC Corner Cafe, the Mill and Communitea that really help to make the neighborhood a livable place.
Well not to rain on their parade, let’s see how deep their bank roll is. I wonder how long they will last….. maybe after they are gone we can get something different at the location……..
Here come the roaches 🙁
From what I heard it’s a real wood fire pizza oven.
Exactly like 3 or 4 other places in LIC.
well well well….what do we have here on the comments….it seems ole Paul here is being bested by the “not another Italian restaurant” comments….and whats this? people actually agrees with it?! oh my…what next? People start commenting on “not another brunch crap”? hahah
More Italian/Pizza. Don’t get me wrong, I like Italian but c’mon. How about some casual, seaside-type seafood, like fried clams, steamers, mussels, shrimp, fish and chips, a good raw bar. Or maybe a decent Indian restaurant. Or Cuban. Something different than what we have a ton of already.
There is a massive seafood restaurant around the corner. It is great you should check it out.
Where exactly?
Borden and 2nd
The Crabhouse, reincarnated.
There’s a Cuban place on Vernon! Madera, it’s excellent.
I’ve never been impressed by Madera. But it’s been a while since I’ve been. And as far as Crabhouse, it is a seafood restaurant but also a steakhouse type atmosphere. I’m talking more like The Lobster Joint in Greenpoint, something more casual, relaxed, like you’d find at the beach. Point is, another Italian/pizza place is not really needed and neither is an upscale type restaurant.
Fresh catch from the East River, right?
Another Italian/pizza!?! Just what we need. Sigh.
what happened to the CVS that was supposed to open around HPS?
Opposite side of the building. Construction has been ongoing for a while and it looks to be nearing completion.
too bad…cvs and restaurant should have switched spaces!!! who needs rowdy patrons, cars blocking corner–not to mention traffic, parking jams–until midnght 7 dys a week at entrance to residential bldg entrance and all around bldg, area? The complaints by residents at HPSC already rolling in….
There’s a whole other side empty in this building, not facing the park which would make sense for a drugstore.
That space will be occupied by CVS. Almost near completion.
Where will a CVS be in LIC…Can’t wait we need one so bad…
Are you kidding? Please tell me you are kidding about “needing” a fucking CVS.
Hate to be snarky, but there are times when I wonder how much better LIC would be if half the businesses weren’t Italian restaurants. Many of them are truly fantastic- but the saturation is just insane and makes the neighborhood that much more “meh.” This could be a great restaurant- but it will likely not be improving LIC for either residents or visitors.
What are you talking about? There really aren’t that many Italian places, and very few that are actually legit. San Remo, owned and run by an actual Italian, went out of business because idiots preferred to buy some bullshit “salad pizza” across the street at Slice, which is run by who the fuck knows who…
So if the neighborhood is only “meh” in your opinion, maybe that’s because the neighborhood’s personality is a reflection of the people that live in it. Maybe it’s all the transplants that are bringing in the “meh,” while the neighborhood was just fine to begin with.
Um, there are plenty already: Manducatis, Manducatis Rustica, Bella Via, Maiella and the best one being Manetta’s.
wow italian/pizza in hunters point!! FINALLY…!!!!!!!!
eyeroll, just kidding obviously…
can we get anything other than Italian/pizza in the neighborhood? so lame already.
well, let’s see how deep their pockets are and let’s see how long they will last……..
They might survive on location alone
I’m glad to see this place occupied but really another Italian Restaurant????
Italian restaurants make money, thats why so many look to open them regardless of saturation. It’s what everyone knows and likes and pretty much amounts to a safe bet for both customer and owner. In fact lots of Italian places are owned and operate by non-Italians. Two of the best Italian restaurants in Queens are actually Croatian and one of the largest Italian chains in the city is Albanian.
Correct. Many pizza places in Manhattan are Albanian.
Sometimes, they are Egyptian.
brace yourselves for trffic jams and noise–specially w liquor license and opened basically all day to 11PM!!! VERY BAD IDEA INDEED…I FEEL FOR THE TENANTS…FAMILIES who will lose that initially-promised…family-friendly, quiet, residential living which is about to end,,less than 2 yrs post construction and opening of HPS. Why not have used the ground floor space for more essential, worthy uses with tennts in mind?? a child-care center or pet spa or pet food store ora lovely bakery/pastry/caffe instead??
There will be many complaints to the LIC board once the initial opening hype settles down and the reality (noise, traffic mess at the corner entrance to the building gets underway this summer…yikes!!!)
Everything you suggested they install instead already exists in abundance in this neighborhood. Maybe you should be glad that they are putting a (hopefully affordable) restaurant option in such close proximity, considering the only options are the terrible riverview restaurant (clearly still open only because it’s a front for something else!) and the overpriced, doesn’t serve crabs anymore crabhouse.
Also- anyone who moved into an apt in LIC expecting a family-friendly, quiet, residential living space is delusional. It’s NYC.