Coney Island Transitions

Polar Bears January 2011

Life could be simpler.  Tomorrow is the annual Polar Bear Club swim.  About 3 thousand swimmers will dip into the cold Atlantic Ocean bringing in the New Year with a bang.  This year things will be different.  Kris Greg's Gill House, owned by Steve Bitetzakis will be closed.  It will be the first time in many years this establishment will be not be serving hot coffee and chocolate.

Last year it was decided that the boardwalk establishments would have one more year to stay open and then be taken over by Central Amusements Inc, CAI.  CAI had hired Sodexo to rebuild all of these restaurants into a themed food court.  Sodexo had rebuilt a restaurant across form the Cyclone.   It opened with a flare but during the summer their business was horrible.  The numbers in the park were 1/4 of what they were the year before and Sodexo backed out.   CAI hired two men, Michele Merlo, a chef in South Beach Florida and Julio Gonzalez a Florida businessman and lawyer to take over the building out of the boardwalk.  Announcements were made in the NY papers and they started by creating Coney Cones, and upscale ice cream parlor on the boardwalk.  Due to no fault of their own, they were delayed in opening and missed the 4th of July weekend.  They opened up on the third week in July.  There was a lot things that still needed to be done but the doors were open and these guys made an excellent attempt to get going.  As days followed they proved themselves to be great a making ice cream and getting better at being part of the boardwalk.  By mid August their first profit loss statement came in and it was not looking good.   They realized at that point that to build out the rest of the boardwalk would take more money than it was worth and in the end they could loose their shirts.   They went back to Zamperla the owner of CAI and asked to renegotiate the terms of the lease based on real figures.  After a long discussion with Valereo Ferrari who ran the park for him, they said no and Michele and Julio backed out of the larger deal.  Ruby's was asked to stay along with Paul's Daughter.  

Coney's Cones

All the other vendors were told to leave as of November 1.   On November 1 everyone except for Steve packed up and left.  Ruby's was asked to invest a huge amount of money to winterize their bar and make it into a more upscale sports bar.  In early December they completed their agreements.  Nathans will take over the Gyro corner doubling their presence on the boardwalk and a new player will enter the boardwalk as a Diner / Breakfast establishment.   They will have to invest more than a million dollars to get up and going.   They are currently busy renovating their building.  By the best estimates they are going to have a really hard time making it there.   Steve decided to take the matter to court and challenge the ownership of his building.

During the last week of July, Steve became really ill.   He went to several doctors and found out that he had colon cancer.   This news spread fast over the boardwalk.  After a long ordeal his HR friend got him insurance and he went to surgery in early September.   When they opened him up they found a huge tumor and removed it successfully.    He was told that he should undergo Chemo as a precaution.  This all happened at the NYU medical center.

The next step was a battle in court.  Valereo was very angered by Steve's persistence.  The NYC EDC also stepped into court with Valereo to stay that they in fact owned the building and that they had a deed for the building to prove it.   Their lawyers were confident that they would win.   If they lost they would have to rebuild the building or buy it from Steve at market value.   That could cost them 1.5 million just to get a building back to where it could be used as a restaurant.   Both parties refused any offers, and the offers made by this city were a mere slap in the face.  So the case went to trial.   The judge was a giant black man who could easily win a spot on network TV.   He warned the parties to know that going to trial might not be good for either party.   As the trial began a huge discussion came up about conversations that I had had with Nathan Bliss over who owned the building and Nat telling me and others that we should move the building.   After two days of testimony to which Nat and Valereo lied,  I was to be the last witness to be presented.  No one from CAI was present except for their lawyer and Nat had also not showed up.   I finished my testimony.   The court room was very tense as the Judge offered his decision.   As his mouth opened to reveal his thoughts he gave credit to both lawyers for doing an excellent job.   Then he quickly awarded the building to Steve.   The lawyer for CAI left without comment.  He was noticeable shaken.  Steve looked like he had just had a stroke.  His face was beat read.   He had won an impossible case and now had the task to move a 40x75 foot building.  He was given until January 13th to have the building off of their property, unless he could show that for good reason he was not able to.

New Fences Block Grill House

The next day, as we were all collecting our thought, the city parks department erected a fence along the boardwalk preventing Steve entry to his building.  That had begun the restoration of the boardwalk  along side his building.   The following day, the park set up a meeting with Nathan, a representative from the mayors office, a parks department representative and the construction company renovating the boardwalk.  Nat who is the president of CIDC and Vice President at the EDC holds a lot of power for the redevelopment of the Boardwalk.   Steve pulled him aside and asked him to buy the building or allow Steve to stay.   Both suggestions would save CAI a million or more dollars from several vantage points.  He rudely replied that they were not interested in any deal at this point.  Steve verbally attacked the representative from the Mayors office calling Nat a liar who did so under oath. It was downhill from there.  Steve got in his car and left and they moved the fence so that Steve could get into his building. 

At the same time this was happening we were calling construction companies to move the building. Although we worked hard to get the riggers to give us an estimate, to date all of them have put us off until after the first of the year.

On Christmas day Steve began to have more pains in his stomach.  Thursday he returned to the hospital to figure out what was going on.  He found out that he was severely constipated.  The X-rays also revealed that the cancer had begun to develop again and may have now gone into his stomach.

Steve has a place along Stillwell Avenue to rest his building.   It is not a perfect spot but he can make money there and might do better than on the boardwalk.  Whether with court constraints and his health issues the building will ever make it there is another question.