LeNell's Days Are Numbered
LeNell Smothers, owner of the eponymous wine and spirit shop in Red Hook, has been searching for a new space for her beloved store since last summer. Unfortunately — for LeNell and for all of her fans across the borough — her lease is about to run out and she’s still got nowhere to go….
LeNell Smothers, owner of the eponymous wine and spirit shop in Red Hook, has been searching for a new space for her beloved store since last summer. Unfortunately — for LeNell and for all of her fans across the borough — her lease is about to run out and she’s still got nowhere to go.
In a note to the shop’s mailing list (which wasn’t published online), LeNell explains that her current landlord, who apparently works for Baluchi’s, won’t renew her lease because he is planning to open his own business in the space. (No official word on whether he’s planning on opening another branch of the Indian chainlet.) LeNell says that she had a draft lease for the vacant lot next to Good Fork, but it fell through this week. One of the owners of the lot is Red Hook developer Greg O’Connell, who owns the Fairway building, among many other properties. LeNell writes:
“We had architectural drawings, had agreed on basic lease points, and I’ve been thinking all along that we were just finalizing details. The space included the store on the first floor and the bar on the second. After discussing this project for nearly a year now, I get a visit from Greg recently telling me that he has just realized constructions costs will be more than he wants to pay. He won’t entertain thoughts of my partnering in building out the space. Just flat out pulled out at the last moment…which happens to be a few days before the end of my current lease. I’m in shock.”
The second space LeNell was considering won’t work out, either, as her landlord wants her to sign a five-year lease, and she’s looking for a ten-year commitment. At the moment, LeNell’s is covered in plastic sheeting, due to a leak that the landlord isn’t interested in fixing, but there’s still time to stop by. The lease is officially up this month, but in LeNell’s words, “I know it will take months for a formal eviction should it come to that.”
Photo by jasminepark
It’s a great store and we love Red Hook so that’s not my problem, but this is – the landlord says he wants to open one of his own Baluchi restaurants there sometime in the near future. Which is why he doesn’t want to give a long lease.
That’s his right. It’s HIS building.
You don’t want to ever get kicked out or priced out you gotta buy a building too. Otherwise no matter where you are you are in danger of the landlord one day deciding he wants to take his own space back for his own business. Lenell’s outrage and huge sense of entitlement in this search for space for her store kind of confirms everything everybody is saying about this woman being nutty. Also as someone pointed out, Lenell was only trying to renew her lease after the other deal fell through for her. Why should the landlord feel this loyalty to her, then?
3:35 PM
You are either John McGettrick or on crack if you’re calling Fairway mediocre.
As a non-gentifying member of the RH community (I live in the house my parents purchased in 1958), I concur – it’s time for you to move.
3:15, better than Crush, 67, Acker Merrall & Condit, Sherry-Lehmann, etc? Really? Then I’m sorry I missed it.
3:28 is right, buy a building. That’s how most small businesses survive long-term. If they live there, sell the house, buy a commercial building, live upstairs.
As a gentrifying Red Hook resident, I view any closing of any of our shops to be a bad omen for the neighborhoods. We have too little as it is and we just can’t seem to retain solid businesses.
I was never a fan of Pioneer Bar, but it was nice to know it was there. This new Brooklyn Ice House doesn’t seem like it will be a big hit.
Hope & Anchor is sub-par, Bait & Tackle is unwelcoming, Sunny’s is never open, Rocky Sullivan’s is far away, 360 is closed, The Good Fork is hard to get into, Tini is overpriced and won’t last given that they get about four people in there a night. Those cutesy little antique jewelry and fancy soap shops aren’t gonna last. Baked has lousy coffee and slow service. So, what do we have left? A neighborhood with a big box store and a mediocre supermarket with water on one side and projects on the other.
LeNell isn’t the nicest person in the world, but her store has character and a good selection.
Time to move to a real neighborhood.
The store has been around for 3 or 4 years and it is an institution? She signs a short commercial lease and everyone should feel sorry for her. You would think she was running a non-profit homeless shelter. She certainly gets a lot of pr. We know she is 37 and owns a house in RH that she bought for 360k a couple of years ago. Why not sell it and buy a building on Van Brunt or rent one of the many empty store fronts. She was negotiating with one person to rent and at the same time with another to build her a building. Please.
Everything in the store is overpriced by 20% at least.
Nothing is handed to anybody – and she comes across as if people owe her something because she owns this “unique” shop in Red Hook.
If she a nice person I am sure people would be less apt to “leave her in shock”.
LeNell’s is by far the best liquor store in the city, and I regularly take the hour-plus ride on the B61 from Queens to go there. I find interesting things every time I go there, most of which are utterly unavailable at the larger shops.
Are LeNell and her store quirky? Sure. She’s certainly not a blow-dried, plastic, personality-free automaton like you’d find at Ikea (or in Park Slope, or at Astor Spirits), but I’ve always found her cheerful, supremely knowledgeable, and generous as hell. If the bitchiness in this thread is representative of the cattiness of her neighbors, (the ones I know all love the store), I hope she moves to Astoria…for purely selfish reasons.
bitter renter
That place is the best liquor store I’ve ever been to…full of style & character, not to mention interesting booze. Obviously a labor of love. LaNell deserves respect, not to mention a storefront. Terrible news…a major loss/bad omen for Red Hook.