[worldtrade2021]

After the opening of Sweetgreen in 2021, another restaurant, Fogo de Chão, is currently planned to open sometime in 2024:

https://www.globenewswire.com/news-r...de-Center.html

The new 5,009-square-foot restaurant is scheduled to open in 2024 at The Oculus at Westfield World Trade Center, the largest shopping complex in Manhattan with 125 retail shops.

Located at the corner of Church Street and Cortland Street with convenient street-level access, the restaurant will offer a new dining experience to the 10 million annual visitors of the World Trade Center Oculus complex.

Designed in partnership with global architecture and design agency Harrison, the World Trade Center restaurant will showcase Fogo’s recent brand transformation with enhanced design and innovation platforms in a warm, timeless and approachable setting. The restaurant will feature an expansive dining room centered around an open churrasco grill, offering guests a view of gaucho chefs butchering, hand carving, and grilling high-quality cuts of protein over an open flame. A Market Table will anchor the front of the grill and feature seasonal salads, fresh superfoods, cured meats, antipasti, and more. In the new restaurant, engaging social gathering spaces will be layered throughout Bar Fogo and the dining room to further enhance the guest experience and ambiance by providing inviting, conversational areas to linger and enjoy All-Day Happy Hour. Dry-aged meat lockers for in-house aging will display indulgent cuts such as a 32 oz. Long-Bone Tomahawk Ribeye, aged for a minimum of 42 days for rich flavor.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/fogo-...222639961.html

Fogo de Chão is cutting off a 5,009-square-foot slice for itself at 3 World Trade Center.

The Brazilian steakhouse plans to open an outpost in the Oculus mall in 2024, which will join its three existing New York City locations, the New York Post first reported.

It is unclear what the length of the lease and the asking rent were for the Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield-owned space, but average asking rent for Manhattan retail space was $663 per square foot in the third quarter of 2023, according to a report from CBRE.

“As we expand our East Coast presence, we continue to see the growing demand for the culinary art of churrasco that we uniquely offer at Fogo,” Barry McGowan, CEO of Fogo de Chão, said in a statement. “Manhattan is a sought-after destination for millions from around the world, and our goal is to provide a distinctive dining experience that complements the city’s diverse culinary landscape.”

It’s unclear who brokered the deal. The landlord and tenant did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the brokers.

The steakhouse chain was founded in 1979 in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and its Oculus location is part of its large U.S. expansion this year with the brand signing 22 other leases.

The chain plans to give the full meat-over-open-flame experience with a dining room and a high-top area known as Bar Fogo in the World Trade Center mall, but the space is somewhat abridged compared to its other locations. The company signed a 12,000-square-foot lease with Boston Properties at 11915 Democracy Drive in Reston, Va., in November 2022.

Fogo de Chão’s Queens location at 92-50 59th Avenue in Elmhurst spans 8,400 square feet and was signed in November 2022. Its Midtown flagship at 40 West 53rd Street is the largest in the company’s portfolio at 16,000 square feet.

For a few years now there has been the opening of a taco bell cantina at Street Level Tower 3 advertised on the westfield website:

https://www.westfield.com/united-sta...antina/75564he

https://www.westfield.com/united-sta.../casual-dining

However since nothing has come of this since then aside from this story in 2023

https://tribecacitizen.com/2023/08/3...ing-up-in-wmp/

TACO BELL “CANTINA” COMING TO WTC
A. wrote to say there’s a Taco Bell Cantina opening soon in the Westfield mall, across from the memorial. Their “Cantinas” feature an urban restaurant design, open kitchen, custom menu with shareable appetizers and alcoholic beverages. Think Taco Bell with beer, wine, sangria and twisted Freezes.

it's possible that the plan was scrapped. Hopefully not, there was apparently a taco bell in one of the original world trade center buildings https://nealungerleider.substack.com...de-center-taco, so it would be a good homage to the site for another taco bell to open at the site.