A commenter noted that a “high profile local restaurant group” had acquired the long vacant Tribeca Tavern space, plus I walked past workers doing demo this week PLUS a heard a rumor that the upstairs tenants had been cleared out so… I channeled by inner James Bogardus and did some sleuthing in the city records.

Sure enough, the building — 247 West Broadway — was sold in August to James Nicolas II, the same owner as the building that houses (drumroll) Frenchette a couple doors down. (Tribeca Tavern closed in 2020.) He purchased 241-243 West Broadway in January 2024 for $15 million. (That building has eight rental units upstairs.)

That’s as far as I go! Not sure how this plays out, but the Tribeca Tavern space is cool — it goes through to Sixth Avenue.

A note on Grand Eleven, the cocktail bar on Sixth Avenue (11 Avenue of the Americas) that abuts this property, and its connection to Tribeca Tavern: The little two-story building was acquired in 2008 by Greg Nardello, the forever manager of Tribeca Tavern who opened the bar in 1996. He bought it with the hope of creating something all his own. He sat on it for a bit, and other projects took precedent (he and his son, also Greg, opened Augurs Well on St. Marks in 2011) but by 2019, his vision of a classic New York City bar was coming together.

And then lung cancer set in. By 2020, Greg’s health was failing. Tribeca Tavern closed permanently on June 4, a victim of the pandemic. And Greg succumbed to cancer on June 14. Knowing their father could never part with anything nostalgic, the younger Greg and his sister, Angela, rented U-Hauls and moved just about every bit of Tribeca Tavern to their mother’s garage in Queens. They had both worked at the Tavern starting as teens (“With the Daddio,” said Angela.) and they knew every inch of the place.

Some of those relics are at Grand Eleven. But others — the Tavern’s neon sign, its Schlitz monuments, multiple chalkboards (“He had a thing for chalkboards,” Greg said.) are still hanging on the walls in the garage. Maybe they will make their way back to Tribeca eventually.