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The End of Paul’s Daughter As We Know It–Will They Return?

Posted in Food & Drink, Redevelopment, tagged Coney Island, Gregory & Paul's, Paul's Daughter, Zamperla on November 13, 2011| 7 Comments »

Paul Georgoulakos, 82, the oldest operator on the Coney Island Boardwalk, in front of the now vacant Paul's Daughter. The store was founded as Gregory & Paul's

On Friday, Paul Georgoulakos and his help began the sad task of removing the hand-painted vernacular signage from Paul’s Daughter’s storefront, which he co-founded on the Coney Island Boardwalk in 1962 as Gregory & Paul’s. It was heartbreaking to see the cavalcade of beloved characters and foods torn from their home on the Boardwalk: Mr Shrimp, Chiefito and Chiefita (the Nice N Sweet/Fluffy Cotton Candy Kids), Shish Kebab (“Made with Love”) and other enticements. Some of the signage has been here since the restaurant’s earliest days and was meticulously restored a couple of years ago. The restaurant equipment was also cleaned, wrapped and carted off to storage.

Signage being removed from Paul's Daughter. November 11, 2011. Photo © Eric Kowalsky

We have to warn you that the set of photos taken today by Bruce Handy is very distressing to look at. Paul’s Daughter as we know it no longer exists. If redevelopment is hell, we have probably entered the tenth circle of the inferno. In Bruce’s Coney Island Photo Diary slide show, you’ll witness the facade of the Boardwalk icon gradually stripped down to ghost signage. The burger statues on the roof, which we wrote about in “Photo of the Day: Coney Island Americana Looking for New Beach” (ATZ, October 13, 2011) are expected to come down this week. Will somebody please make a video? It will be a suitable companion piece to the video of the Astroland Rocket being removed from the roof.

A new version of the iconic restaurant may or may not return to this spot, depending on how lease negotiations go with Zamperla USA. We’ll get to that in a minute and hope the possibility consoles you a little. There’s a rendering, which was shown at the AIA forum the other night–if you must see it now, scroll down. But first we’d like to pay our respects to the original Gregory & Paul’s, which became Paul’s Daughter in 2008. Here’s a photo taken in 2005 by James and Karla Murray from their celebrated book STORE FRONT- The Disappearing Face of New York. Today another legendary New York City store front has disappeared thanks to redevelopment and gentrification.

Gregory & Paul's with Astroland Rocket on the roof photographed in 2005 for the book STORE FRONT- The Disappearing Face of New York. Photo © James and Karla Murray

The beloved seaside restaurant and its signage were featured in the 1999 music video “Summer Girls,” in which the band LFO danced on the boardwalk as well as on the roof in front of the Astroland Rocket. Taken as a whole, Paul’s store is a sublime example of the midway maxim “It’s the front of the show that gets the dough!” It’s a lesson that their new neighbor Coney Cones, which has a store front that would look at ease in Manhattan or Miami, but doesn’t stand out in Coney Island, is apparently unfamiliar with. Savvy restaurateurs are not necessarily successful Boardwalk concessionaires.

In 2012, Paul’s storefront would have been fifty years old and eligible for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places. (Yes, there are examples of roadside architecture on the Register.) Now that will never happen. Instead Paul’s, Ruby’s and the other Boardwalk businesses are required to renovate and pay the high cost of the rehab–reportedly half a million to a million dollars–if they want to be part of the new Coney Island. Here’s our flickr slide show of photos of Paul’s Daughter that we’ve taken over the past few years.

The removal of the signage does not necessarily spell the end of Paul’s Daughter in Coney Island, since Zamperla recently did an about-face from last year’s evictions and offered eight-year leases to Boardwalk favorites Paul’s Daughter and Ruby’s Bar. Negotiations continue with the store owners and a decision is expected after Thanksgiving, perhaps sooner, ATZ has learned. A number of clauses in the leases, which we previously described as onerous, have caused the negotiations to be extended beyond the original November 14 deadline, according to the Coney Island Rumor Mill. “It could go either way,” is the phrase we keep hearing in reference to both Paul’s and Ruby’s.

The two Mom and Pops were offered leases after a Miami restaurateur pulled out of a $5 million dollar deal to redevelop the Boardwalk. According to the New York Post story by Rich Calder, Coney Cones co-owner Michele Merlo said business at his new store had been “very disappointing” because of the bad weather and told other Boardwalk vendors “they can’t make money off Zamperla’s existing lease offer.”

Will Paul's Daughter Be Back? Architectural rendering for the new Paul's Daughter shown at November 11 Coney Island Panel at AIA. Photo via Amusing the Zillion

At Friday night’s panel on the Future of the Coney Island Amusement Area at the AIA, we were surprised when Zamperla’s Valerio Ferrari showed slides of the business owners’ renderings for their proposed stores, despite the fact that leases have yet to be signed with some of them. We hope this is a sign that Zamperla is motivated to negotiate a fair lease deal with the Mom and Pop businesses. As we wrote last month:

Each of the Boardwalk Mom and Pops has been paying $100,000 per year rent, plus a $10,000 surcharge initiated this year to help keep the Boardwalk restrooms open later and for sanitation and fireworks. Believe it or not, $100,000 is also the base rent that CAI/Zamperla USA pays annually to the City. In addition, they also pay a small percentage of the gross receipts. For example, ten percent of gross receipts over $7 million. According to the NYC Economic Development Corporation’s lease with CAI (which ATZ obtained last year through the Freedom of Information Act), the City will receive 15% of the fixed rent paid by any subtenant. Zamperla gets to keep the other 85%. We think they have a pretty sweet deal with the City and should pass the sugar.

We were pleasantly surprised by the renderings for Ruby’s and Paul’s Daughter. The Boardwalk will not after all be rethemed as an orange-and-blue advertisement for Luna Park as previous drawings have suggested. Paul’s Daughters’ rendering for their proposed store shows the spruced up Burger People on the roof and what appears to be new hand-painted signage along the bottom. Stay tuned for our report on the AIA panel and the renderings of the other Boardwalk businesses.

From Zamperla's Slide Show at AIA Panel: An early rendering of 'Phase III: Improving the Coney Island Boardwalk' shows Luna Park's themeing applied to Coney Cones and Paul's Daughter. Photo via Amusingthezillion.com

Reversal of Fortune on the Coney Island Boardwalk

Posted in amusement park, Food & Drink, Redevelopment, tagged Central Amusement International, Coney Cones, Coney Island Boardwalk, Luna Park, Paul's Daughter, Ruby's Bar, Sodexo, Zamperla on October 20, 2011| 13 Comments »

Sodexo This Way: Sign directing trainees to Sodexo restaurant in Luna Park, Coney Island. April 12, 2011. Photo © Mr Jones via Amusing the Zillion

Bringing in Miami Beach restaurateurs and French food services giant Sodexo to operate in Coney Island has turned out to be a fiasco for Luna Park developer Central Amusement International. We’re just glad some of the people in charge realized Coney Island is neither Miami Beach nor a corporate cafeteria before we lost all of our original, irreplaceable businesses and ended up with a shuttered Boardwalk.

After kicking out nine Coney Island Mom and Pops from City-owned property to make way for upscale eateries, the park division of Italian ride manufacturer Zamperla is now reported to be offering multi-year leases to at least two local favorites — Paul’s Daughter and Ruby’s Bar. The veteran businesses were supposed to pack up and get out by November 4th. Let’s hope they can negotiate a lease without too many onerous clauses and more of them get the invite. And if a spot becomes available, please, please bring in people who know and represent Coney Island and Brooklyn, New York.

Easter Brunch at Paul's Daughter on the Boardwalk. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

One of the reasons for Zamperla’s about-face is that the Miami Beach restaurateurs who opened Coney Cones in July are pulling out of a $5 million deal that would have put new eateries on the Boardwalk from West 12th Street to Stillwell. According to yesterday’s New York Post story by Rich Calder, Coney Cones co-owner Michele Merlo said business at his new store had been “very disappointing” because of the bad weather and told other Boardwalk vendors “they can’t make money off Zamperla’s existing lease offer.”

Sources tell ATZ that Merlo and his partner Julio Gonzalez have offered to sell Coney Cones, which was a $200,000 investment for them and pays an annual rent of $75,000, to a veteran operator in Coney Island. The ice cream shop is located at the Boardwalk entrance to Luna Park and serves gelato, salads, panini, and Kobrick’s coffee. Currently open every day from 11am till around 7pm, it will close for the season at the end of the month.

Unmentioned in yesterday’s flurry of news reports was another newcomer to Coney Island also pulling back from the original plan. Sodexo, which has food and drink kiosks in Luna Park and operates the new Cyclone Cafe on Surf Avenue, was slated to take over Paul’s Daughter. Last December, Sodexo rep Sandy Boyd showed up at the 40-year-old Boardwalk establishment to pick up plans from the City’s architectural firm. As ATZ reported in “Paul’s Daughter Dishes on the Boardwalk Brawl” (ATZ, January 13, 2011), when one of the architects asked Boyd if Sodexo was going to be a year-round restaurant, she replied “oh no, it will be seasonal, there aren’t enough people here off season.” This was a remarkable admission since part of Zamperla’s rationale for bringing in new businesses to replace the veterans was that the Boardwalk eateries would be open year-round.

On the menu at Sodexo's Cyclone Cafe: Healthy Dining at Luna Park. Photo © Mr Jones via Amusing the Zillion

Sodexo, the world’s 21st largest corporation, has kept a low profile in Coney Island. The only sign we’ve seen with their name is the piece of paper at the top of this post. It was put up to direct trainees to their restaurant in the spring. ATZ broke the news last year that Sodexo has an exclusive contract with CAI to provide food within the parks and was investing $2.4M in Zamperla’s Coney Island. At the time Luna Park CEO Valerio Ferrari told ATZ that $1.4 million was being invested in the new sit-down restaurant. He said it would be open year-round and feature waiter service and a variety of food. As for the Boardwalk, Sodexo-run restaurants were set to take over “some but not all” of the Boardwalk locations, Ferrari said, including Paul’s Daughter and Pio Pio Riko, which flanked the Boardwalk entrance to Luna Park. Things changed.

Sodexo’s Cyclone Cafe opened this season on Surf Avenue at West 10th Street with a menu of burgers, salads, sushi and brick oven pizza, but it is neither a sit-down restaurant nor a year-round venue. It has been closed on sunny weekdays in recent weeks while the Boardwalk Mom and Pops were open. During Halloween Horror Nights at Luna Park, the cafe is open only to patrons of the ticketed event inside the park. While its Surf Avenue lights blaze, its shutters are closed to the public. When the spot was Gregory and Paul’s, the picnic tables on the sidewalk were one of our favorite spots to sit and have a bite to eat while friends rode the Cyclone.

Shuttered on Surf Avenue: Sodexo's Cyclone Cafe. Photo © Mr Jones via Amusing the Zillion

We’re happy to have officially suspended the Photo of the Day in ATZ’s “Countdown to Corporatization.” The sad goodbye to our Boardwalk friends began with “The Chief of the Coney Island Boardwalk” on October 8th. Rumors of another reprieve had been flying for a few days, which is why we stopped the series on Saturday.

One note of caution: The owners of Ruby’s Bar and Paul’s Daughter have not yet negotiated lease deals with Luna Park operator Central Amusement International, which holds a 10-year lease on the City-owned property. The specter of a dark Boardwalk puts the pressure on everyone for the deal to get done. But the Coney Island Rumor Mill has been abuzz about onerous terms in the leases that CAI has offered to the handful of operators who were previously invited to stay as well as to the Miami restaurateurs. The businesses are also expected to foot the bill for the rehab of the buildings as well as pay a higher rent and stay open year round.

One of the problems with a mandated year-round Coney season and hours is that unlike Luna Park, the restaurants are not subsidized businesses. Each of the Boardwalk Mom and Pops has been paying $100,000 per year rent, plus a $10,000 surcharge initiated this year to help keep the Boardwalk restrooms open later and for sanitation and fireworks. Believe it or not, $100,000 is also the base rent that CAI/Zamperla USA pays annually to the City. In addition, they also pay a small percentage of the gross receipts. For example, ten percent of gross receipts over $7 million. According to the NYC Economic Development Corporation’s lease with CAI (which ATZ obtained last year through the Freedom of Information Act), the City will receive 15% of the fixed rent paid by any subtenant. Zamperla gets to keep the other 85%. We think they have a pretty sweet deal with the City and should pass the sugar.

However, CAI/Zamperla USA has also invested nearly $30 million in building and operating Luna Park and Scream Zone. According to CAI’s contract with the City, Luna Park also received a subsidy of $5.7 million from the City for “among other things, facilitating the purchase of certain equipment necessary for the Tenant to operate the Premises as a first class amusement park.” CAI’s Luna Park and Scream Zone as well as the property occupied by the Boardwalk businesses are on City-owned land in Coney Island purchased from Thor Equities for $95.7 million in 2009 and leased to the amusement operator for a ten-year period that began in 2010.

Zamperla-Zoppe Riders Coming to Zamperla’s Coney Island

Posted in circus, Events, tagged "Olissio Zoppe", acrobat, bareback riders, Circus Vidbel, Coney Island, equestrian, Zamperla, Zoppe-Zamperla on June 21, 2011| 3 Comments »

When Circus Vidbel opens in Coney Island on July 4, one of the featured acts will be the famed Zamperla-Zoppe Bareback Riders, whose skill as equestrian acrobats goes back six generations to two illustrious Italian circus families. The brothers Olissio, 32; Gino, 23; and Ermes, 19, will be performing here all summer in Vidbel’s ring with Ambra Zerbini and their Percheron draft crosses and a Paso Fino.

Asked if the Zamperla-Zoppe brothers were related to the ride manufacturing Zamperlas from Vicenza who operate Luna Park, Olissio said they were third cousins, but have never met. “I very much look forward to meeting them,” he added, and was delighted when we told him that Alberto and his son Antonio were frequently seen in Coney Island.

ATZ spoke with Olissio by phone from Louisiana, where the Zamperla-Zoppes were winding up a three-month tour with Ringling’s Gold Unit, which played Coney Island for the past two summers, but bowed out this year. Earlier this month, we confirmed with Valerio Ferrari, CEO of Zamperla’s Central Amusement International, the operators of Luna Park and Scream Zone, that CAI would be bringing in the Circus Vidbel for a one-year deal.

Zamperla-Zoppe Riders. Photo via Cavallo Equestrian Arts - Ma'Ceo

“I’m terrifically excited to be coming to Coney Island, I’ve done some shows with Vidbel before,” Olissio Zoppe told ATZ. The brothers have also performed either individually or as a troupe with Dolly Parton’s Dixie Stampede, Gilles St. Croix’s Cheval Theatre, Olissio’s equestrian extravaganza “Fratelli,” Orlando’s Arabian Nights Show and at numerous state fairs and Renaissance festivals.

According to Olissio, the Zamperla family began to branch out a couple of generations ago when Alberto Zamperla’s grandfather, also named Alberto, built the family’s first ride. Said Ollisio, “Way back, his father Antonio had a circus and they also had a traveling movie theatre inside the tent.” Olissio recalled that his late grandfather, Napoleone Zamperla, was visited in Florida by Alberto Zamperla’s father Antonio, the founder of the ride company. They were first cousins, Olissio said. Now the circus equestrian side and the amusement ride manufacturing side of the Zamperla family will be reintroduced to each other this summer in Coney Island.

The video above shows the Zamperla-Zoppe Riders’ bravura reunion performance before an audience of fans and friends in Sarasota, the home of the American circus and the brothers’ hometown. They perform somersaults from one galloping horse to another and other daring feats with passion and authenticity that truly seem to come from another century. Their website speaks of “celebrating a tradition that stems from the Golden Age of the Roman Empire. A tradition as grand as the Coliseum that was built to contain it. An eternity ago it thrived, but for centuries since, it was but an empty shell. However, that which once left spectators breathless and amazed, the very Heart of Rome, lives on today.”

Napoleone Zamperla (1926-2009) and his family performed the Roman Bareback Riding Act. Photo via Cavallo Equestrian Arts

The Circus Vidbel will also feature Susan Vidbel-Ashton, aerial cloud swing and lyra acts; Mike Ashton, foot juggling and live music; The Fabulous Darnells Magic and Dog Acts; Tevin Delmonte, Rolla Bolla and Clowning; Peggy Mills and Nino Murillo, Archery; and Guiming Meng, Vase Juggler.

The Big Top will set up on the City’s Stillwell parcel across from the new Scream Zone. According to the press release on the Circus Fans of America website, performances are scheduled from July 4 through Labor Day. Shows are Tuesday through Friday at 4, 6, and 8 pm; Saturday and Sunday, 3 and 6 pm. The circus has Monday off. Tickets cost $10 and will be available for purchase before showtime.

Update, July 17…

The circus will be here only through Sunday, July 17th and then will be hitting the road again. Discounted tickets are now available online
http://coneyisland.eventbrite.com/