By Julie Shapiro
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
TRIBECA — The owner of a trendy TriBeCa restaurant turned out to a community board meeting Wednesday night in search of a permit for sidewalk tables.
Instead, they got a stern lecture on being rude to local residents.
TriBeCa residents at a Community Board 1 meeting complained that the churlish staff at Locanda Verde, an upscale Italian cafe that Robert De Niro has a stake in, scoff at locals who drop in and ask for a table.
“You have uniformly the rudest people working at your restaurant,” said Peter Braus, a neighborhood resident and chairman of CB1’s TriBeCa Committee.
“I know you’re very popular and don’t care. But maybe you will care when the heat wears off…. Places that stay in business are the ones that cater to the neighborhood.”
The upscale Italian cafe on Greenwich Street has become a trendy foodie destination since Robert De Niro opened it last year in the base of his Greenwich Hotel.
Joshua Pickard, a co-owner of Locanda Verde, came before Braus’ committee Wednesday night for permission to expand the restaurant’s sidewalk cafe.
But before Pickard could begin making his case, Braus and other residents lodged their complaints. Braus said that on one occasion a host told him over the phone that a table was available for dinner, but when he and his wife arrived at the restaurant seven minutes later, he was apologetically told that the table was gone.
Pickard replied that some staff members were fired for being rude to customers.
Still, Pickard said the restaurant cannot accommodate everyone who wants to eat there — people start calling early in the morning a month in advance to book tables, he said. Locanda Verde’s website promises to reserve a quarter of the tables for neighborhood walk-ins, but that’s not what’s happening, residents said.
Pickard tried to convince CB1’s TriBeCa Committee Wednesday night that expanding Locanda Verde’s sidewalk café from 10 tables to 34 tables would help solve the problem, at least for the summer.
But the already-annoyed board members replied that the sidewalks on Greenwich and North Moore Streets are too narrow to handle all those additional seats.
“That would totally dominate the block,” said Liat Silberman, a TriBeCa Committee member.
After some back-and-forth with Pickard, the committee ultimately voted to allow five additional tables on Greenwich and four more on North Moore.
The community board’s vote is advisory, and the city will make the final decision.
