The Four Seasons is closing this week, less than a year after $40M reopening
Photo via Wikimedia
Less than a year after moving out of the historic Seagram Building and reopening a new space, the famed Four Seasons Restaurant will close Tuesday, the New York Times reported. The news comes after the restaurant reopened last year on East 52nd Street with a $40 million renovation. And last December, former managing partner Julian Niccolini resigned after pleading guilty to sexual assault in 2016.
“Regretfully, after nearly 60 years, the Four Seasons Restaurant will close the week of June 10th,” Alex von Bidder, managing partner of the restaurant, told the Times.
“We have been privileged to work with one of the finest culinary teams and outstanding staff that has stayed with us through some challenging times over the course of our history.”
The Four Seasons opened in 1959 in the Seagram Building and quickly became known for both its food (it’s credited with creating the “power lunch”) and its interiors. Designed by Ludwig Miles van der Rohe (the architect behind the Seagram) and Philip Johnson, the restaurant featured an impressive art collection, white Carrara marble fountain, and hanging flowers. Its original location was designated a landmark in 1989.
In 2016, developer Aby Rosen took over the building and did not renew the restaurant’s lease. Von Bidder and then-partner Niccolini opened the new version just three blocks away last August. The new restaurant struggled to make it work and often had empty seats during dinner.
“We just couldn’t make it; the restaurant world has changed,” von Bidder told the Times. “We were not doing enough business to satisfy [the investors].”
Von Bidder also told the Times that it’s “hard to measure” whether the forced departure of Niccolini had an effect on business.
[Via NY Times]
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