EAST VILLAGE — Here's a beef you can sink your teeth into!
A new meatball-focused restaurant set to open on East 14th Street is reportedly planning to give its popular Lower East Side neighbor a run for its money.
EV Grieve reported Wednesday that a former fast-food space at the corner of Second Avenue will soon reopen as "The Meatball Factory," courtesy of the folks behind Midtown restaurant Destino.
A rep for the restaurant, scheduled to open in roughly three months, said the menu would seek to imitate that of the hugely successful Meatball Shop on Stanton Street.
The Meatball Shop has seen lines of loyal patrons queuing for the comfort food since opening in 2010, and a second location debuted in Williamsburg this week.

But that apparently hasn’t scared off competitors, as a worker at the forthcoming 14th Street restaurant told Grieve its menu “will put the Meatball Shop to shame.”
The new eatery also sits across the street from the soon-to-open sister location of Lower East Side chef Eddie Huang’s popular Rivington Street Taiwanese joint BaoHaus.