You are reading

M. Wells to open for friends tonight, public on Thursday

Getting ready for opening

Getting ready for opening

Nov. 12, 2013 By Christian Murray

M. Wells, the acclaimed Long Island City restaurant that closed in the summer of 2011, will be opening its steakhouse this evening.

Sarah Obraitis, who owns the restaurant with her husband Hugue Dufour, said that the restaurant will be open to friends and associates tonight and Wednesday. It will be open to the general public from Thursday and beyond.

The restaurant, called M. Wells Steakhouse, is located out of a former auto body repair shop at 43-15 Crescent Street. It is directly across the street from Rockrose’s Linc LIC residential building.

Dufour told LICPOST recently that the restaurant would be a “meat temple” that would serve steaks and “European-style” cuts of meat.

The restaurant seats 70 people—excluding a workshop area where Dufour is building a catamaran. However, the catamaran is a work in progress and will not be completed by the time the restaurant opens.

The focus, nevertheless, will be on meat and poultry. “It won’t be pretentious,” Dufour, the Canadian native, said.

M. Wells has been operating a dinette out of a MoMA PS1 (22-25 Jackson Ave.) since the fall of 2012. The dinette pays homage to the building’s former identity as a schoolhouse with communal tables.

However, the dinette’s hours are limited—open Thursday-Monday from 12- 6 pm.

“It’s a small operation and we need to make a living,”  Dufour said. “It’s hard to live when all you can provide is lunch (given the limited hours).”

Dufour has no plans to close the dinette when he opens the restaurant.

M. Wells built a huge following in Long Island City when it operated a tin-can diner at 21-17 49th Avenue.

Last minute fixes before opening

Last minute fixes before opening

email the author: news@queenspost.com

3 Comments

Click for Comments 

Leave a Comment
Reply to this Comment

All comments are subject to moderation before being posted.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Recent News

Mayor Adams marks one year of ‘Padlock to Protect’ with pizza and progress in Queens

Mayor Eric Adams marked the one-year anniversary of the launch of the city’s “Operation Padlock to Protect” initiative at a pizzeria on the Rego Park and Middle Village border on Wednesday and touted the significant progress in shutting down more than 1,400 illegal smoke shops across the five boroughs and seizing more than $95 million in illegal product since last May.

“The city was fed up. We heard it at every town hall. This time last year, there were thousands of illegal smoke shops plaguing our city with unlicensed cannabis endangering our children,” Adams said. “One year later, we are proud to announce that we have turned the tide. Thanks to the tireless efforts by our city’s law enforcement officers, we’ve padlocked thousands of illegal shops and created safer streets for children and families. But we’re not stopping there.”