Ian Schrager is firing back at Whole Foods Market after the grocery chain tried to shut down the rooftop bar at his Public Hotel.
An entity tied to the hotel filed a summons against Whole Foods, seeking to stop its delivery trucks from parking “in front or in the vicinity” of the property at 215 Chrystie Street. The filing comes the week after Whole Foods sued the hotel, claiming the crowd for the trendy bar blocks overnight deliveries to its East Houston Street location by restricting access to its driveway and loading docks.
This comes after Whole Foods sued the hotel, trying to temporarily stop Schrager from operating the bar, known as The Roof, between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m., and is demanding at least $400,000 in damages.
But in a letter to the judge, an attorney for Schrager claims the line is not for The Roof, but for the dance club Artspace on the hotel’s lower level. The venue is open three nights a week, starting at 10 p.m., and “only has a line reaching out to the sidewalk typically between 11 p.m.- 2 a.m.,” according to a letter opposing the shutdown.
People also line up for a food truck, an Amazon drop-off and pick-up location as well as the Second Avenue subway, according to the letter, which claims closing The Roof “would cause devastating and irreparable harm to” Schrager’s business.”
On the nights Artspace is open, Whole Foods can still receive “off hour” deliveries from before 11 p.m. or after 2 a.m., the letter says.
A lawyer for Whole Foods filed his own letter, doubling down on its request for a temporary restraining order and claiming “nothing has changed” since the hotel became aware of the lawsuit, and, “If anything, during this past long holiday weekend, the conditions worsened.”
Lawyers for both sides did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Schrager and Steve Witkoff opened the 28-story building — which includes 11 luxury condos on top of the hotel — in 2017, but were forced to close it after the onset of the pandemic. The hotel reopened in the summer of 2021 with a star-studded bash, but by the next year, the developers had defaulted on their $189 million senior mortgage and faced a UCC foreclosure on their equity in the property.
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