Nothing, including an attack on his waitstaff, can stand in Jeffrey Bank’s way. So, following a rocky and most noted vaccination disagreement with a patron, Alicart Restaurants has let the world know that its’ belief in New York City is unwavering.
The Mermaid Inn is headed to Times Square with its largest location to date. The seafood restaurant with locations in Chelsea, Greenwich Village, and on the Upper West Side is planning to open in a space that formerly housed an outpost of Heartland Brewery, a craft beer institution that closed ahead of the pandemic.
The new restaurant will open at 127 West 43rd Street, between Sixth and Seventh avenues, next spring. The location will be the Mermaid’s biggest yet, measuring in at a gargantuan 15,500-square-feet with room for approximately 550 seats
The opening marks the inaugural partnership between the Mermaid’s owners Danny Abrams and Cindy Smith with Alicart Restaurant Group. The Jeffrey Bank led Alicart owns nine restaurants across the country including outposts of Carmine’s and Virgil’s BBQ in
Manhattan.
Abrams and Smith, who according to the New York Post restaurant/real estate guru Steve Cuozzo, typically self-fund their openings. In an unusual step for a restaurant, Mermaid Inn will tap $3 million in foreign investment through the federal government’s EB-5 program, which offers permanent US residency to overseas investors (“green cards”) in exchange for buying passive stakes in certain jobs-creating businesses. Most EB-5 funding has gone into real estate developments such as Hudson Yards. Mermaid Inn might be the first Big Apple restaurant to participate in the plan. The minimum stake is $500,000 per investor.
For over 32 years, the Alicart family of restaurants has been offering an exciting and unique spectrum of dining concepts. The Legendary Carmine’s Family Style Italian restaurant—with locations in NYC’s Times Square, the original in the Upper West Side, the Tropicana Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, Washington DC’s Penn Quarter, the Atlantis Resort & Casino in the Bahamas and the largest restaurant in Las Vegas at the Forums Shops at Caesars Palace—serves exceptional southern Italian cuisine in abundant portions designed for sharing.
Carmine’s sister restaurant is Virgil’s Real BBQ, located in New York City’s Times Square and Upper West Side, Las Vegas at the LINQ Promenade and also in the Atlantis Bahamas. Virgil’s Real Barbecue has been acclaimed as one of America’s top 10 BBQ restaurants, offering a genuine southern home-style experience along with authentic BBQ and American dishes created by our many smokers on premise.
