Save the restaurant and you'll eat, eat, eat
Riverdale Garden's owner offers:
Chef Michael Sherman wants Riverdalians to put their money where their mouths are - quite literally.
The owner of the Riverdale Garden restaurant has embarked on a bold marketing campaign to keep his Manhattan College Parkway eatery afloat - he is asking 50 couples to "invest" $5,000 each to help him pay rent for several months and make necessary improvements to the restaurant. What do investors get in return? Lots of free meals.
"You will be eating your investment," Mr. Sherman said in a mass e-mail sent out late on Feb. 16. Without contributions, the owner lamented, this past weekend will be the upscale restaurant's last.
As of press time, 19 couples had opened their checkbooks for Mr. Sherman's cause. If 31 more couples join them, Mr. Sherman believes he will be able to keep Riverdale Garden alive.
"It really is a test to see if Riverdale is ready for fine dining," he said. "The proof is in the pudding. If they want to go back to eating at diners, they are going to let me know."
But even $250,000 might not be enough to save the restaurant - at least at its current location.
Emelia Michaels, who owns the property, said she has no plans to lease the space to Mr. Sherman again, given his poor track record of rent payments.
Ms. Michaels said that in four years she never received the monthly rent on time - not once - and that he currently owes her $19,000 in back rent. Ms. Michaels also claims Mr. Sherman owes her $50,000 in damages to the property, which includes a once-lush garden in the back. The owner said the garden has been neglected.
"I built the most beautiful thing in the city and now it's disgusting," she said.
Ms. Michaels said she is so eager to get the chef out of the space that she's willing to let him walk away on Nov. 30 - when the lease expires - without paying a penny.
She said she will not return his $12,000 security deposit.
Mr. Sherman admitted that he was often late in paying his rent, saying business was never good enough to make the restaurant profitable.
The sprawling eatery, on a bend on Manhattan College Parkway, just west of Broadway, suffers because of its location, Mr. Sherman said. Without ample street parking, he was forced to add a valet service, but still the restaurant failed to attract big crowds. He also had difficulty finding an experience wait staff.
Despite mass e-mails and various promotions, Mr. Sherman couldn't win over Riverdale diners. He estimates that more than half of his customers come from outside of the Bronx.
"We've invested in the community but the community has not reinvested in Riverdale," he said.
Instead of just closing the restaurant last month, Mr. Sherman looked for another tenant to take on his lease and pay off Ms. Michaels. He shook hands with George Mercado, a restaurateur in the Bronx, on a $71,000 deal to take the restaurant as-is - tables, chairs, TV, liquor and food inventory. Mr. Mercado planned to keep the restaurant, and suggested adding a brick oven, which might have attracted some of the college clientele just across the street.
But, when Ms. Michaels raised the rent from $7,350 to $7,500, the chef said, Mr. Mercado walked away from the deal on Feb. 14.
Left to his own devices, he decided to turn to his customers for support.
If he makes $250,000 in two weeks, he plans to pay $100,000 to Ms. Michaels to secure a sevenyear lease, use $50,000 to spruce up the restaurant's exterior and use the additional $100,000 as working capital.
When told Ms. Michaels refused to lease the building to him again, Mr. Sherman already seemed to have a back-up plan, saying he is eyeing a Riverdale Avenue property to launch another restaurant and "walk away with his customers" if needed.
Interested investors may contact Michael Sherman at chefsherm@vzw.blackberry.net.
