EAST VILLAGE — More changes are coming to St. Marks Place.
Longtime falafel joint Mamoun’s Falafel Restaurant will relocate a few storefronts over to 30 St. Mark's Place and aims to open March 1, said co-owner Galal Chater, whose father started the business 45 years ago.
The new location is double the restaurant's current East Village footprint at 1,400 square feet, according to real estate firm Eastern Consolidated, which negotiated the 10-year lease in three weeks, a record for the company.
The larger space will allow the local chain, which opened its St. Marks Place location 10 years ago, to seat slightly more customers, provide more catering and offer delivery for the first time, Chater said.
Mamoun's Falafel Restaurant currently has six locations in the New York metro area, according to its website.
Chater said he also plans to offer new food items like rice, feta cheese, juice and other "little things that will add to the flavor profile," at the new St. Marks Place location. It will also accept credit cards for the first time and feature decor that incorporates the city and the neighborhood even more, he added.
Chater called the changes an upgrade.
"[Customers] are going to get what they're used to times ten," he said.
Chater, who co-owns the Mamoun's Falafel Restaurant chain with his four brothers, said the company began looking for a new location after they began to have issues with their landlord as their 10-year lease drew closer to expiring in May.
He called Eastern Consolidated to ask about a different space, he said, when broker told him about 30 St. Marks Place.
"Everything moved really quickly after that. We negotiated and had everything signed in three weeks," Chater said.
Director Jeff Geoghegan represented the restaurant while James Famularo, Eastern Consolidated’s principal and senior director of the retail leasing division, represented the landlord, according to a statement by the company.
The new space previously held a seafood restaurant called Red and Gold Boil, which closed after 13 months in business, according to EV Grieve, which first reported the move.
Mamoun’s move down the street is yet another change for St. Marks Place, where longtime businesses have closed or chosen to relocate elsewhere in the neighborhood.
Chater called the new deal "fortuitous," explaining that the business did not want to leave the street.
"We love being there and we love being in the East Village," he said.
