Monday, August 15th, 2011

Popular Upper West Side wine bar Wine & Roses (286 Columbus, btw. 73rd/74th) is back in the news again, and it’s not good.

Last summer there was a messy split between the bar’s founders, and now there is word the bar has been served eviction papers in New York State Civil Court.

Examiner.com reports the notice is due to “missed rent payments, past due taxes associated with the lease, not paying the water bill, late fees,” etc. The original papers were sent out in early July and the back rent and tax issues have apparently still not been resolved. Many thanks to MUW reader Cathy for the link.

If Wine & Roses fails to make good on payments owed, it’s simply a matter of time before they’re evicted and the property is seized (kind of like this). At the moment, they’re still open for business.

In addition to being a popular neighborhood spot, the bar has been known to cater to celebrities, including Matthew Broderick, Brooke Shields, John Krasinski, Emily Blunt, Steven Tyler, and various SNL cast-members to name a few.

The biggest kick in the balls is this: Despite the messy split last year that forced her out, original owner and founder Jennifer Klein still has her name on the lease. So while Ms. Klein hasn’t been involved with the bar for more than a year and the group that ousted her seems to have run popular spot into the ground, her name is apparently on the lawsuit.

Perhaps the outstanding financial issues will be resolved, but don’t be surprised to see Wine & Roses to show up in an “Openings/Closings” post sometime soon.

(An interesting side-note… even though the current ownership group created a new website after last year’s coup, Ms. Klein’s original site is still up and running. The domain names are slightly different.)

Filed under: Bars, Celebrities, Food & Drink, Going Out, Manhattan, New York City, News, NYC, Upper West Side, Upper West Side Blog, Upper West Side Date Stuff, UWS 2 Comments »
Tags: 286 Columbus, Brooke Shields, celebrity, Emily Blunt, eviction papers, Jennifer Klein, John Krasinski, Matthew Broderick, New York City, New York State Civil Court, NYC, Steven Tyler, Upper West Side, UWS, Wine & Roses, Wine Bar