Putting the Mets opener and Johnnies basketball aside, restaurants and real estate dominate the local news in the back half of March (as they always do). Rice Thief has been given two stars by The New York Times in a review this week. Located in Dutch Kills and opened in Spring 2024, The Times lauds the restaurant’s Ganjang gejang, Hokkaido scallops, and Abalone, and notes “here we are in a chill Queens restaurant, where patrons in baseball caps make seaweed rice wraps with sauce-stained fingers.”
It’s all good stuff, definitely worth a read, and after doing so vaunted this restaurant to the top of my ‘To-Go’ list. Not far behind it though, were two other reviewed restaurants in this week’s NYT grouping. One with an LIC pedigree, and the other ‘reppin’ Queens. Both have also been added to my ‘To-Go’ list, which is in a state of suspension until this March Madness is over and I can pull myself away from bar burgers and chicken wings.
//One other local establishment of note, possibly more appropriate during these days of Madness: Jax Pizza Joint has opened at 27-20 Jackson Avenue in Court Square, formerly the home of Juliet’s Pizza. According to the link below, it has a connection to the owners of Utopia Bagels.
//BUT man cannot live on food alone, shelter and/or the need for streams of income bring us to real estate. Three interesting recent items of note for LIC in that regard. 43-10 21st Street, aka the Argo Envelope building, was sold for $14.5 last week, with the seller’s broker claiming “At $359 per s/f, this transaction sets a pricing benchmark for multi-story industrial in today’s Long Island City market,” in a press release. Yet also last week, the JACX Building entered ‘special servicing,’ a phrase Mr. Google describes as “the management of distressed commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) loans, where a specialized third party steps in when a borrower defaults, faces imminent default, or violates loan covenants.” Basically the owner (Tishman Speyer) seems to have given back the keys. This despite a press release in January of 2019 stating that the building had reached full occupancy. Finally, the Paragon Building at 21-02 49th Avenue near the Hunters Point Avenue subway station, has sold at for 56% less than what the owner had valued it at three years ago when it took over the building. What to make of all of this? Well tertiary office locations are definitely not hot (and no longer cool either), and industrial space is. And Argo Envelope still makes envelopes. For today anyway.
Rice Thief & More NYT Reviews – go forth young man!
The Utopia Bagels Crew Opens a Classic Slice Shop in LIC – take two for this location
What Queensbridge Park fields could be – renovation in the offing
Marcus & Millichap brokers $14.5m sale of industrial property in Long Island City
Tishman Speyer’s Long Island City office towers head to special servicing
The JACX, Tishman Speyer’s 1.2 Million Square Foot Creative Office Development In Long Island City, Reaches Full Occupancy Months Prior To Opening – January 2019, ahh what a time
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