Manhattan’s First Wegmans Will Have an Omakase Counter

More details are out about Manhattan’s first Wegmans grocery store slated to open in the second half of 2023. In addition to its usual pizza and deli counters, the grocery store planned for Astor Place will also be home to a 94-seat seafood restaurant with an oyster counter and a 10-seat sushi bar, according to a liquor license application from the company. Menus proposed in the application list sushi, sashimi, caviar, seafood platters, and various dim sum, along with an omakase served from the bar. The company’s second New York City location is located at 770 Broadway, between Lafayette Street and Broadway, in the former home of the Astor Place Kmart, which closed after more than two decades in June 2021.

Models are suing Coyote Ugly over social media ads

Three models are suing Coyote Ugly Saloon over a series of ads that made it appear as though they worked at the East Village bar. According to the New York Post, actor Eva Pepaj, model Lina Posada, and The Amazing Race contestant Dessie Mitcheson filed a joint lawsuit in December 2022, claiming that the bar used their photos in advertisements for events in a way that made it appear as though they previously worked at the club. None of the women have ever been hired by the dive bar chain, which opened in the East Village in 1993, and became famous for its appearance in a 2000 blockbuster film of the same name.

Sahadi’s added to list of historic Brooklyn businesses

Middle Eastern grocer Sahadi’s has been added to the state’s Historic Business Preservation Registry after 74 years in Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn Paper reports. The online list was created to promote New York businesses that have been open for at least 50 years and “have contributed to their communities’ history.” Nominations to the registry must be sponsored by an elected state official, and Sahadi’s — which first opened in Manhattan’s Little Syria in 1895, before relocated to Brooklyn Heights in 1948 — was nominated by state assembly member Jo Anne Simon.

A bar specializing in clarified cocktails opens today

The team behind Southeast Asian restaurants Wau and Singapura will open Jelas this evening, a new bar at 17 East 13th Street, between University Place and Fifth Avenue, that claims to specialize in clarified cocktails. The menu lists Vietnamese coffee, Singapore Sling, and margarita, all of which have been made with ingredients that have gone through milk-wash clarification ($16 each). The cocktail bar is standing room only, with space for 12 people. No reservations.