Tipster: Iris Cafe Coming to Willowtown Thursday

By on November 17, 2009 7:38 pm in Brooklyn Heights, Food

BHB newshound “AW” sends us this tip:

I was walking home tonight down Columbia Place and noticed that one of the formerly empty storefronts was no longer empty. I stopped and talked to the person there. Apparently it’s going to be a coffee shop and will be open this Thursday. It’s called Iris Cafe. As a resident of Riverside Apartments, I for one am very excited!

The Iris Cafe is one of the new restaurants revitalizing the Riverside Apartments strip.   An Italian restaurant is planning to open soon in the old River Deli space.

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  • the banned

    That’s nice. That building needs something to make it seem less down at the heel. I think it looks like the saddest building in the whole neighborhood. Is it rent control? Is that the problem that makes a building in Brooklyn Heights today look like the Bronx in 1979?

  • Adam G

    It may not be the Brooklyn Heights Tea Lounge we all wanted, but I’m hopeful. It’s gotta be better than Tazza, right?

  • http://brooklyneagle.com Eddie The Eagle

    Well then banned, perhaps they should contact Landmarks Conservancy for some low-cost renovation loans.

  • andy

    Except for the abandoned storefronts, I think the building looks nice from the outside. No, it’s not picturesque brownstones, but the Bronx in 1979? That seems like a gross exaggeration.

    This new cafe is between 20 and 30 Columbia Place. This morning I also noticed some work going on in another space just north that.

  • bklyn20

    This is actually one of the most beautiful buildings in the neighborhood, and it has a very special history. It should also have a beautiful garden in the back, but due to a slumlord landlord there are 14 or so large old magnificent trees and not the garden that AT White. White was the pioneer of model tenements at the turn of the last century planned.

    Rent control is not the problem. In fact, I think that the majority of the apartments are market-rate, but Pinnacle (the building’s owner) keeps that information secret so they can cry poverty more effectively.

    BUT, thanks to the hard work of the Tenants Association, expert pro bono legal assistance from a Willowtown neighbor and some help from the Willowtown Association, the landlord’s plan for a below-ground parking garage (with a feeble attempt at a garden above) may be on its way to a long-overdue demise. I hope this is the case.

    The stores need to be filled with viable businesses, studios, etc — Pinnacle was warehousing and pretending that the spaces were unrentable. If the garden’s future is secure, I think that tenants and neighbors will work hard to return the garden to it past beauty. (And PInacle has to do the work to break up the asphalt.)

    I don’t live there, but do live nearby.

  • alex

    I plan to check it out this weekend. I’ll let you know what I think…

  • Remsen

    I would imagine the location will see a huge increase in foot traffic once the Park opens up, no?

  • Publius

    I miss Alicia’s, which was a nice restaurant/cafe down there. I hope this place has better luck.

  • anon

    Hours are 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

  • fanofalfred

    Actually, Alfred T. White was a great American philanthropist. I am so surprised to see someone calling the Riverside apartments ugly. They are a great example of what affordable housing should be. Mr. White’s philosophy was called “Philanthropy plus 5%”. We could use more of that today. Developers in bk would have been wise to take his lead, but instead these luxury buildings sit nearly vacant. It’s no surprise that the AT White buildings like “cobble hill towers” are now being condo’d because they happen to be in a now expensive neighborhood and look a lot better than anything scarano can come up with. Much of Willowtown used to be for longshoremen who worked the docks of Brooklyn. Anyway, many of those fancy town houses you drool over used to be rooming houses. So, Fuhhgetabbit.

    http://brooklynhistory.org/blog/2009/04/24/alfred-t-white-and-brooklyns-better-self/

  • Cranberry Beret

    And before they were rooming houses, they were fancy townhouses. What’s your point?

  • WillowtownCop

    I just had an egg salad sandwich there that was very good.
    And the people were friendly, unlike the people at Tazza.

  • Jib Jab

    Tazza is great… never had a bad experience there and the food/coffee is good.

  • Lefty

    They are very beautiful buildings. They’re not being maintained correctly, but they are architecturally splendid. Would be curious to know what someone who lives there thinks of living in the space. My only issue is the place seems over run by mice and rats–even outside, there are plainly visible rat holes in the sidewalks.

  • nabeguy

    Lefty, the rat holes are there for a reason. How else do you expect the folks from Pinnacle to get in and out of the place?

  • Billy Reno

    Oh snap! Good one, nabeguy!