By Julie Shapiro
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
LOWER MANHATTAN — From elegant TriBeCa restaurants to a Financial District nightclub for dogs, dozens of new businesses opened downtown in 2010.
One of the most unusual is Fetch Club, a South Street dog spa where pampered pooches can get a pedicure, a massage or an aromatherapy session. The 13,000-square-foot boutique and kennel did a soft opening in October and is planning a larger dog party, complete with a disco ball, for early 2011.
TriBeCa’s bar and restaurant scene continued to generate buzz in 2010, with the highly anticipated openings this fall of the exclusive Compose restaurant on Worth Street, which serves just 10 diners a night, and the trendy Weather Up Tribeca, a cocktail lounge on Duane Street.
For beer drinkers on the east side of town, the pair behind Bin no. 220 opened Keg no. 229 on Front Street, which is the first bar in the city to feature self-serve beer taps.
Downtown also welcomed half a dozen new hotels this year, including the swanky W New York Downtown, the World Center Hotel overlooking Ground Zero and the Andaz Wall Street, which opened its own farmers’ market for guests and local residents. In all, the neighborhood below Chambers Street now has three times as many hotels as it had on 9/11, according to the Downtown Alliance.
Recession-defying entrepreneurs also tapped into lower Manhattan’s growing population of families, opening the Downtown Dance Factory on Reade Street and a new branch of Midtown Comics on Fulton Street this fall.
Many of the new establishments got a warm welcome, but French bistro Plein Sud, which opened in TriBeCa in May, quickly became embroiled in a turf war with an adjacent halal cart.
Some of the new businesses had a difficult time staying afloat.
Nirvana International, a jewelry boutique that opened over the summer on West Broadway, was forced to close earlier this month after thieves lifted over $500,000 in gold and gems.
Down on Pearl Street, Fika Espresso Bar struggled to turn a profit after opening in March but saw sales improve after co-sponsoring the city’s first pop-up sidewalk cafe this summer.
Along with all the openings, downtown has lost some beloved establishments this year, including Pan Latin Cafe in Battery Park City and Carmine’s Italian Seafood in the Seaport. The owner of Carmine’s, though, hopes to reopen the bar and restaurant one block away this spring.
Other big openings slated for 2011 include a restaurant in the Fraunces Tavern space, a Shake Shack and Blue Smoke in Battery Park City and dog-themed bar and restaurant on Stone Street.
