FORT GEORGE — Neighbors are fuming at a plan to open a new branch of a popular, yet controversial, Inwood restaurant to their block.
Residents who live at or near 1 Nagle Ave. said they were concerned to hear that Mamajuana Café is looking to open a "high-end Italian restaurant" in the space and appealed to Community Board 12 to recommend against its liquor license application to the State Liquor Authority when it comes to the full board at the end of the month.
But that appeal fell on deaf ears as a board committee voted to recommend the full board approve the liquor license. The board will vote on the measure during its general meeting on Jan. 24, which will feature opportunities for public speaking.
Restaurant owner Victor Osorio told a group of neighbors that attended a CB12 economic development committee meeting this week that he and his restaurant associates were in the process of installing soundproofing, which was required by the landlord, and hoped to work with residents to be a good neighbor.
“This will be a family-style restaurant like Carmine's restaurant downtown,” he said, describing his vision for the restaurant.
Locals, however, were not swayed.
“You don’t need soundproofing if it’s going to be the clink-clink-clinking of plates,” said Jack Martin, who said he has lived in the same building as the proposed site of the restaurant since 1959.
Martin and neighbors said their concerns were based on the "ancient history" of the chain restaurant’s location on Dyckman Street and resident's experience with another restaurant and lounge that operated at site for 12 years until 2009.
That restaurant, Rancho Jubilee, was the site of numerous criminal and quality of life complaints during its tenure and was ultimately closed down when restaurateur and nightclub owner Rolando Lantigua was imprisoned when he admitted to stealing more than $800,000 from the state in 2011.
“Unfortunately we do come with a bad taste in our mouths," said on resident who said she lives upstairs from the restaurant. “But we have fought hard for the quiet we now have.”
The proposed 4,200-square-foot shared table restaurant Mamajuana Café would be the chain’s sixth current and planned restaurant.
In addition to the Dyckman Street establishment, the owners recently opened another location on the Upper West Side at 570 Amsterdam Ave. and W. 88th Street, and plan to open another location at 134 E. 48th St. in Midtown as well as in Patterson, N.J.
They also have two restaurants in Miami, Florida and Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic.