This Fall, Greenpoint Is Filling Rooms It Already Had

At 560 Manhattan Avenue, the corner that was Enid's for years has its original paint back. The new owners restored it before opening Matches there on August 14. The name is a nod to Bar Matchless, which used to stand nearby, and the people behind it are the Greenpoint Fish & Lobster team. Two weeks later, Limousine opened at 632 Manhattan Avenue, where Ponyboy had been. In September, the couple who ran Wasabi for 26 years opened a new restaurant a few doors up the same avenue.

A list of this fall's new places would miss the pattern. Most of the notable openings are Greenpoint operators moving into Greenpoint rooms. The biggest piece of waterfront news, three days old as of this writing, is a park the city first promised in 2005.

Who took which room

Three of the four rows have the same kind of name in the last column. Each is an operator who already had a long-running Greenpoint business.

The new owners already had Greenpoint addresses

Limousine is a partnership between Zander Brezinsky, who owns Five Leaves at 18 Bedford Avenue, and Michael Petersen, who owns Goldie's at 195 Nassau Avenue. They told Greenpointers the project came together over about nine months, with fabrication by Allsorts Inc., a Brooklyn shop. Ponyboy had closed quietly about a year earlier, so the corner sat between tenants for a while. Limousine is primarily a cocktail bar with a short food menu centered on oysters. You can order them with an apple-and-celery mignonette, broiled with sausage and parmesan, or fried with halloumi-stuffed olives. There is also a karaoke room.

Ayune shows the pattern even more plainly. Robby and Cristin Wijaya ran Wasabi on Manhattan Avenue for 26 years and closed it this summer. Their new restaurant at 664 Manhattan Avenue serves old Wasabi favorites alongside hand-roll sets of three to six rolls, starting at $19. If you were a Wasabi regular, you only have to walk a little farther.

Matches belong to the same story. The Greenpoint Fish & Lobster team could have opened a second seafood counter. They opened a bar instead, and its name refers to a bar the neighborhood used to have.

The corner that closed

The same stretch of time also took away one long-running place. Ashbox Cafe at 1154 Manhattan Avenue stopped serving in July after 18 years. Owner Yoko Kubo confirmed the closure on Instagram in August and cited her "worsening battle with arthritis." Kubo cooked, ran the kitchen, and often served the Japanese-leaning breakfast and lunch herself. "Serving you has never felt like work," she wrote. "It felt like taking care of friends and family."

Wasabi lasted 26 years, and Ashbox lasted 18. Both are reminders of how long a Manhattan Avenue storefront can stay one business, and how much of the avenue's history depends on a single owner deciding to keep going.

The new names filling in around them

Not every opening this season comes with Greenpoint history. Several first-time businesses opened nearby, and they fill hours of the day the bars don't cover.

• Lucky Creamery, 669 Manhattan Avenue. Opened August 1 with Asian-inspired ice cream, egg waffles, and vegan options.
• Loco Cafe, 626 Manhattan Avenue. Opened Saturday, August 29 at 10 a.m. Some reports list it at 86 Nassau Avenue because it sits on the corner, but the shop's own posts use the Manhattan Avenue address.
• Kirbee's, 55 McGuinness Boulevard South. A daytime Texas barbecue shop from pitmasters behind Goldee's and Barbs B Q. It soft-launched August 30 and had its first official day September 4.
• Santa Chiara Caffè, 227 West Street. An Italian café, bakery, and gelateria that soft-opened in late August. Its full liquor license was still pending as of September.
• Kuttley House, 216 Driggs Avenue. A Yemeni-owned coffee shop that soft-opened September 10. Traditional Yemeni coffee and tea are planned, but they aren't on the menu yet.
• Glasshaus, 28 Herbert Street, on the Greenpoint-Williamsburg border. A family-owned café that opened in July. Beer and wine are waiting on a license.

One existing restaurant is also changing. Breeze at 595 Manhattan Avenue adds four Sichuan dishes on October 8, including double-cooked pork and soft-shell crab in a tomato-egg sauce. And one more former space is spoken for. Lucky Day, a planned family café, small grocery, and community room, is going into 158 Green Street, where Blue Light Speak Cheesy used to be. Coverage says it opens this fall but gives no date.

Line up the addresses, and the cluster is easy to see. Loco Cafe at 626, Limousine at 632, Ayune at 664, and Lucky Creamery at 669 all opened within about two months on a short stretch of Manhattan Avenue, between August and September 2026.

The park that took 21 years

The waterfront news follows the same pattern on a larger scale. On October 1, the city broke ground on Box Street Park, on Newtown Creek. Mayor Zohran Mamdani led the event with Parks Commissioner Tricia Shimamura and NYC Economic Development Corporation Commissioner Anthony Shorris.

"More than 20 years ago, City Hall promised to transform this lot into a park. That was 2005. When that promise was made, movies came out on VHS."

That promise was part of the 2005 Greenpoint and Williamsburg waterfront rezoning. The rezoning allowed high-density housing along the North Brooklyn waterfront, and in return the city agreed to build new parks. Mamdani is the fourth mayor to work on this park. Council Member Lincoln Restler is the third council member to do so.

The plan covers 2.5 acres. It includes an elevated esplanade, ADA-accessible paths, terraced granite seating, gardens, a lawn, a basketball court, a picnic area, a public restroom, and separate dog runs for small and large dogs. The project is fully funded at $34.5 million. That total includes $2 million that the current administration added in its September capital plan, $500,000 from the City Council, and about $5 million from local developers through air rights sales and private funds.

The timeline is long. The first phase is expected to finish by the end of summer 2028. Part of the site is still taken up by the MTA's Emergency Response Unit facility. The recent Monitor Point rezoning clears the way for the MTA to relocate it, which will add another half acre in a second phase expected to start in about two years. When the park is done, it will connect with Newtown Barge Park and the Greenpoint Landing esplanade along the neighborhood's northern edge.

The other unfinished 2005 park made progress earlier this year. Bushwick Inlet Park's Motiva parcel, near North 14th Street, opened April 30 with a small beach, water access, birdwatching and native plants. As of a May report, the Bayside and CitiStorage parcels were still unfinished.

Dates on the calendar through mid-November

These are confirmed for 2026. Most are organized by long-running local groups.

1. October 10, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. The Puppetmobile visits McGolrick Park, hosted by Friends of McGolrick Park, with storytime, a puppet show, a park cleanup, and a costume swap.
2. October 10, 5 p.m. The Polish & Slavic Center is hosting a benefit gala for singer Stan Borys at 177 Kent Street, featuring local performers and a children's choir.
3. October 16 and 17. Good Room at 98 Meserole Avenue celebrates 12 years with two nights, each featuring a different lineup.
4. October 17, 1 p.m. Josh Rotbert of Greenpoint Bike Clinic teaches Bike Repair 101 at the Greenpoint Library, 107 Norman Avenue.
5. October 31, noon to 3 p.m. The Fourth Annual McGhoulrick Halloween in McGolrick Park, with a children's parade, a dance party, and crafts.
6. October 31, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Nassau Avenue closes to cars from North 15th Street to Lorimer Street for the Nassau Open Street Halloween.
7. November 14, 10:30 a.m. A street tree care workshop with presenter Gil Lopez at the Greenpoint Library.

Every Sunday, the McGolrick Park Farmers Market runs from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the center of the park between Driggs and Nassau Avenues. The market, run by Down to Earth Markets, operates year-round.

If you want to see the season's changes in one afternoon, start at the market on a Sunday morning. Then walk Nassau Avenue to Manhattan Avenue, get coffee at Loco Cafe, and continue north past Limousine to Ayune at 664 for hand rolls from the people who ran Wasabi.

If you own a home here and wonder how a new wave of openings like this one plays into what nearby homes are worth, Darrell Williams is glad to talk it through calmly, without any pressure to make a move. Schedule a Consultation whenever the question comes up.