{"id":355728,"date":"2026-09-24T14:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T14:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/355728\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T14:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T14:38:10","slug":"can-the-corner-store-succeed-outside-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/355728\/","title":{"rendered":"Can The Corner Store Succeed Outside New York?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Four days after Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce\u2019s wedding,<\/a> Este Haim<\/a> and Fergie were still recovering over sour cream and onion martinis in a candy-striped booth on the corner of Houston and West Broadway. At a neighboring table, Vanessa Bryant<\/a>, Kobe Bryant\u2019s widow, and their daughter Natalia were sitting with the Bryants\u2019 youngest girls, Bianka and Capri, as they excitedly ordered sodas. This was the same table where, two days later, Adrien Brody<\/a>, wearing a tight black beanie in the middle of July, would celebrate\u00a0the end of his play, The Fear of 13, with a posse of friends, while Gwyneth Paltrow<\/a> and Chris Martin\u2019s<\/a> 20-year-old son, Moses, wined and dined his college girlfriend nearby. And on that same night, in a private room toward the front of the restaurant enclosed by three glass walls and draped in red-velvet curtains, a woman described to me only as \u201cElon Musk\u2019s<\/a> best friend\u2019s wife,\u201d was hosting her birthday party.<\/p>\n

Two years ago, what is now one of the hottest rooms in New York was a fluorescently lit, sparsely populated Dos Caminos, the Mexican chain owned by Houston billionaire Tilman Fertitta, whose hospitality empire includes Mastro\u2019s, Keens Steakhouse, The Palm, and even the Rainforest Cafe. Fertitta, who also happens to be Donald Trump\u2019s ambassador to Italy\u2014spending much of this summer conducting diplomacy from his 383-foot yacht rather than the embassy in Rome\u2014originally bought into the EMM Group, which owned the charmingly gimmicky Meatpacking District seafood restaurant Catch, in 2017 before restructuring it under his main corporate umbrella in 2021. With it came Eugene Remm, the restaurateur who had turned Catch, with a second location in LA, into one of the defining nightlife destinations of the 2010s.<\/p>\n

Remm, ready for a second act, quickly transformed Dos Caminos into The Corner Store in under six months. Almost immediately, it was a hot spot for influencers\u2014though Remm swears that wasn\u2019t his intention.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did not know what an influencer was. Sincerely,\u201d he tells me, saying he only wanted The Corner Store to be \u201ca little hang, a little American grill.\u201d\u00a0 There was no social media strategy, no marketing plan\u2014they didn\u2019t even promote the restaurant through Catch so that The Corner Store could have its own identity.\u00a0 Still, he admits that he did know about the popular TikTok food accounts Sisters Snacking<\/a> and The VIP List<\/a>, both of which posted early glowing reviews of Remm\u2019s made-for-social-media menu: Caesar salad with everything-bagel-seasoned croutons and fried cream-cheese croquettes; honey-drizzled pizza pockets; bite-sized lobster rolls finished with a blob of caviar; sour cream and onion martinis served with a side of the potato chips it was based on; a Samoa Girl Scout Cookie\u2013inspired ice-cream sundae, preferably consumed while whispering about the celebrity sitting just out of frame.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything on the menu is worth getting,\u201d says Chris Rock<\/a>, who\u2019s a big fan of\u00a0Corner Store\u2019s \u201cbeautiful people, cool vibe, and, most importantly, great food.\u201d Remm\u2019s \u201ccute little project\u201d was soon rivaling even the snobbiest born and bred New Yorkers\u2019 favorite hotspots\u00a0Via Carota and The Polo Bar\u2014and members\u2019 clubs like San Vicente Bungalows, Zero Bond, and Chez Margaux\u2014to be among the city\u2019s most reliable places to see and be seen. There were singers like Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter, and Olivia Rodrigo; models like Gigi Hadid and Hailey Bieber; athletes like the Knicks\u2019 Karl-Anthony Towns<\/a>, who celebrated his historic NBA championship with then fiance Jordyn Woods, Kylie Jenner<\/a>, and Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet<\/a> in the corner booth. \u201cNo one presents a vibe, an ambience, and the feeling of being a family member and not a customer like Eugene,\u201d says Towns. It also quickly became one of the hardest reservations in town to secure. Unless you could get to Remm or Fertitta directly, you weren\u2019t getting in. The Corner Store opens at 5:00 p.m., seven days a week and, Remm says, the only way to get in without a reservation is to wait in a line, which starts forming around 3:30 p.m. everyday, for one of four bar seats saved for walk-ins.<\/p>\n