The restaurateurs behind Catch – the New York-based celebrity hotspot that has become a nationwide brand – have decided to open a “corner store” in Manhattan’s trendy Soho neighborhood.
The new eatery – slated to open Monday at 475 W. Broadway at the corner of Houston – will be called simply “The Corner Store.” The idea is that it will offer essential dishes from around the city.
Think classic steak frites, the kind served best by Raoul’s, but also found at Odeon and Balthazar. Or a pastrami reuben like the kind found at Katz’s, or a more upscale version from the Polo Bar uptown.
Pizza is, of course, also on the menu in the form of five cheese pizza rolls and there will be a raw section with dirty martini oysters.
“You went to the corner store because it literally had everything you needed,” Eugene Remm, a co-founder of Catch Hospitality Group, told Side Dish. “The people knew you there and you went every day if you wanted batteries or a carton of milk. They had it all.”
It is also, of course, on a perfect corner – another reason for the name, he added.
Cocktails will include Oli’s dirty martini, with housemade vermouth-based brine and olive-oil washed vodka and white vermouth, a tomato martini, a sour cream and onion martini, and a Tuxedo No. 2 martini, with gin, Dolin Blanc vermouth, Noilly Prat, lemon and absinthe.
“I think the beverage program is super special, with tableside martini service in custom glass bottles — they will be precisely diluted and perfectly chilled. You serve yourself, so you will never have a warm martini,” Remm said.
Remm and Mark Birnbaum launched the first Catch 13 years ago this month. In 2017, they brought in partner Tilman Fertitta, the billionaire owner of the Houston Rockets who is CEO of Landry’s and also behind major restaurant chains including Morton’s the Steakhouse, as well as Catch.
While Catch restaurants are often large, seating 300 to 400 guests, The Corner Store, which will open where Dos Caminos once stood, will seat 80 people inside, with a 13-seat bar, and around 50 people in a glass encased patio outside.
The design — from David Rockwell’s Rockwell Group — includes a green onyx bar top with an antique mirror behind it.
The main dining room has two types of banquette seating with green velvet and leather upholstery and box-patterned oak tabletops.
The Corner Store menu comes from Catch Hospitality Group’s culinary director, Michael Vignola, and executive chef Paul Castro.
The drinks menu is curated by Lucas Robinson, the group’s beverage director; Alongside industry veterans Alexis Belton, previously of The Alinea Group’s The Aviary; and Dev Johnson, formerly at Employees Only.
“We were inspired first and foremost by the NoMad Bar. Period, the end,” Remm said. “It had the perfect blend of quality cocktails and classic American cuisine. It was my favorite place.” Catch launched in New York in September 2011.
It was followed by a 2016 opening in LA, followed by Vegas in 2018. The second concept, Catch Steak, launched in New York in 2019.
“Then we opened Aspen in the middle of COVID, in December 2021,” Remm said.
Catch Steak in LA followed in June 2022, and Miami launched in May, earlier this year.
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