Purchasing is the principle attraction for a lot of in SoHo, the place shops like Khaite, Zara, Chanel, H&M, Adidas and Tiffany & Co. abound. However all of these spenders should eat too.
The newest addition to the downtown neighborhood is Bar Mercer at 25 West Houston Road close to the nook of Mercer Road. The title is a play on phrases for restauranteur John McDonald, who first unveiled MercBar 30 years in the past. For sure, he is aware of the block effectively, having owned and operated bars and eating places within the neighborhood. As an indication of the neighborhood’s fashion-centric commercialization, that authentic location at 151 Mercer Road shuttered in 2016, in order that the constructing may very well be razed. The deal with is now a Tory Burch retailer.
McDonald’s native lore shouldn’t be as previous as SoHo’s Fanelli Café, which dates again to 1847 however has been revived by Gen Zers previously yr due to TikTok posts. On its opening evening MercBar hosted vogue editor and stylist Elizabeth Saltzman’s thirtieth birthday celebration, throughout her Campion Platt relationship days. McDonald mentioned, “It was a tremendous time. We had zero signal, nothing marking us, and we needed to have a doorman seven nights per week to manage the circulation for the primary a number of years. Solely then did I drop to 5 nights per week and possibly by yr 15 was it 4 nights.”
With 50 seats within the restaurant and 12 extra on the bar, Bar Mercer’s kitchen is being commandeered by Preston Clark, who stays the chief chef on the close by Lure Fishbar, one other considered one of McDonald’s dineries. His late father Patrick, a James Beard Award winner, was one other established culinary drive, having been the primary chef at Odeon and later labored at Tavern on the Inexperienced. Bar Mercer patrons can tuck into chilled oysters, the Bekshire pork chop or “the hangover pasta,” and wash any of that down with a bottle of wine.
McDonald quietly closed Bar Tulix at that very same location in November, when chef Justin Bazdaric determined to relocate to Finland. Earlier than opening Bar Mercer, the room, ground and seating have been refurbished, and classic lamps, lighting fixtures and flashback photographs of Mercer Road from the Nineteen Sixties and ’70s have been put in. Diners may also discover an inside considered one of a former restaurant that was housed on the identical location in 1935.
Bar Mercer is situated at 25 West Houston Road.
Whereas 134 of the SoHo Broadway Initiative’s 158 storefronts have been occupied as of final month, sit-down eating places are extra scarce other than Lure and Balthazar, in response to deputy director Brandon Zwagerman. Extra informal choices may be discovered at Mangia, Broadway Connoisseur, Starbucks, Assume Espresso, Housing Works Bookstore Café, Bibliotheque and Juice Era, or within the in-house cafés at Bloomingdale’s, Aritzia and Arc’teryx.
Bar Mercer is “by no means” meant to be a back-up, if Prada takes over the subterranean house that Lure Fishbar has occupied for 20 years at 575 Broadway, McDonald mentioned. There have been rumblings and media reviews that the Italian luxurious home is contemplating doing that, because it has a retailer in the identical constructing. Final month McDonald instructed WWD that that prospect prompted “lots of” of individuals within the vogue trade to ask McDonald in regards to the scenario, together with some high-profile diners like Cindy Crawford, Chris Rock, John Varvatos and Nicole Miller. As of Tuesday, he had no official updates in regards to the scenario. The seafood restaurant’s lease expires within the first quarter of 2026.
McDonald has lengthy been entwined with the style crowd and he understands how the system works. His sister used to work for the Ford modeling company in New York Metropolis. In a 1999 interview with WWD in regards to the debut of one other considered one of his Mercer Road eateries, Canteen, McDonald recalled what Eileen Ford instructed him as a 16-year-old, throughout a go to to her Manhattan city home. Slumped in opposition to a wall, Ford mentioned, “’Stand up, John. You’re sturdy sufficient to face by yourself two toes.”
