At the corner of Third Avenue and East 17th Street stands a facade with stepped gables and carved stone that looks out of place on a commercial avenue. It is Scheffel Hall. Architects Henry Adam Weber and Hubert Drosser designed it in a German Renaissance Revival style, modeled on the Friedrichsbau at Heidelberg Castle, and it went up in 1894–95. On Friday, October 2, a sports bar with 14 years on the block moved in.
That move fits a pattern across the neighborhood this season. Gramercy's most notable additions are new tenants in rooms the neighborhood already has memories of, and in each case the room's earlier life is shaping what goes into it now.
Scheffel Hall Gets a Sports Bar With a Long Memory
Eater New York reported that Triona's served its last beer at its original Gramercy Park location on Monday, September 28, timed to the Chicago Bears game that night. Four days later it reopened next door at 190 Third Avenue as Triona's Vintage Sporting Club. Eater's October openings roundup lists vintage sports memorabilia, more than 20 screens, an updated Irish-leaning pub menu, and the same loyalty to the Bears and the Michigan Wolverines.
The building it moved into has been a gathering place for more than a century. The Landmarks Preservation Commission's 1997 designation report traces it back to Carl Goerwitz's German rathskeller. William Allaire and his heirs later ran the restaurant, and in 1928 they sold the Third Avenue portion to the German-American Athletic Club. In the 1930s, under managers Joe King and Jack Lichtenberg, the place served moderately priced German dishes and imported beer. According to the report, it filled with college students drinking from gallon-sized glasses and singing along to piano and violin.
In 1969 the lease went to a restaurant called Tuesday's. In April 1979 it opened Fat Tuesday's, an 80-seat jazz club in the basement, which debuted with the Ron Carter Quartet. The commission's report names some of the musicians who played the room: Gerry Mulligan, McCoy Tyner, Stan Getz, Dexter Gordon, Ahmad Jamal and Betty Carter. From 1984 until the club closed in 1995, Les Paul played there every Monday night. His guests included George Benson, Keith Richards, Eddie Van Halen, Bob Dylan and Jimmy Page. The Highlander Brewery Pub took over the upstairs restaurant afterward and closed before the 1997 designation.
So the building's Monday nights have a lineage. Triona's planned its last night at the old address around a Monday game and brought its crowd to a room where Monday nights meant Les Paul for eleven years. The memorabilia now on the walls adds one more chapter to a long record of people gathering at this corner.
The Veritas Room Gets a Wine List Built to Match
Amphora reuses an older reputation along with an older space. On Wednesday, September 9, it opened at 43 East 20th Street, on the western edge of Gramercy, in what Eater described as the long-closed home of oenophile favorite Veritas.
Veritas was known for its wine list. Amphora's cellar holds more than 2,500 labels, which Eater counts among the largest in the city. Wine director Chris Miller focuses on Burgundy, Northern Rhône, Piedmont and Champagne, with producers including Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, Coche-Dury, Raveneau and Rousseau. Executive chef Jack Logue, formerly of the Lambs Club and Betony, cooks three- and four-course menus. The bar serves à la carte, which makes it the easier way in for a weeknight.
The space came with expectations, and Amphora answered them directly. Triona's carried its own identity into Scheffel Hall, while Amphora took on the one its room already had.
67 Irving Place, Where a Gramercy Original Plans to Return
The third room has not opened yet, and its story starts before 2026. Maialino first opened in 2009 inside the Gramercy Park Hotel, where it became known for ricotta pancakes and cacio e pepe. According to Eater's November 2025 report, it closed in early 2020 when the hotel shut down. It then ran as a wine bar, Maialino (vicino), at the Redbury Hotel from October 2022 to August 2023. A return to the hotel itself never happened.
Its planned home is 67 Irving Place, near East 18th Street. Eater's report gave the opening as 2027. Surface's February 2026 piece confirmed the restaurant would take the building's street-level space but gave no date. For now, Maialino's return is announced, not scheduled.
The building has its own history. Surface describes 67 Irving Place as a former printing factory and a Beaux-Arts fixture of Gramercy since 1910, now converted into a residential building by Morris Adjmi Architects. The firm's project page says the original 1910 facade was restored, the office interiors were converted to residences, and the new storefront will welcome Maialino. Surface also notes that Danny Meyer, whose Union Square Hospitality Group runs Maialino, moved his family to Gramercy in 1998 and still lives there.
This is the same pattern as the other two rooms, applied to a restaurant the neighborhood already knows. An old industrial building gets a new use, and the tenant planned for its ground floor is a Gramercy restaurant that closed in 2020.
On Park Avenue South and 23rd Street, the Firsts Arrive
Away from Irving Place and Third Avenue, the openings on Gramercy's northern and western edges look different. They are first locations for out-of-town brands, and the neighborhood name matters to them.
- Tatte Bakery & Café, 315 Park Avenue South. This is the Boston bakery's first New York City café. Its founder, Tzurit Or, is a self-taught pastry chef. In a statement published by the Flatiron NoMad Partnership, the company said opening its first New York café in Gramercy "feels particularly special." It called Gramercy "a neighborhood people actually live in." The menu runs from shakshuka and a tahini Caesar to a Honey Halva Latte, and the café is open daily.
- Bun Mee, 115 East 23rd Street. Eater reported the San Francisco banh mi shop's opening for Thursday, October 8. It is the chain's first location outside California. The Infatuation's new-openings guide lists it as open for lunch and dinner.
The two groups use the neighborhood in different ways. Tatte chose the Gramercy name for a Park Avenue South address that Eater-style roundups often place in Flatiron. The core's arrivals, by contrast, took on specific buildings, and with them a beer hall's past, a wine room's reputation, and a printing factory's facade.
A Walking Order for an Autumn Afternoon
The five addresses fit into one loop, from south to north:
| Stop | Address | What the room was | Status this fall |
|---|---|---|---|
| Triona's Vintage Sporting Club | 190 Third Avenue at East 17th Street | Scheffel Hall: German rathskeller, German-American Athletic Club, Fat Tuesday's | Open since October 2 |
| Maialino | 67 Irving Place near East 18th Street | 1910 printing factory, now residences | Announced; Eater reported 2027 |
| Amphora | 43 East 20th Street | Former Veritas | Open since September 9 |
| Bun Mee | 115 East 23rd Street | First location outside California | Opening reported for October 8 |
| Tatte Bakery & Café | 315 Park Avenue South | First New York City café | Open daily |
A few blocks northwest, Madison Square Park has Roberto Lugo's exhibition Alfarero del Barrio (Village Potter) on view through December 6, 2026. On Wednesday, October 28, from 3 to 7 p.m., the Flatiron NoMad Partnership is holding a free Día de Muertos celebration on the Flatiron North Plaza.
If you own a Gramercy building with a past like Scheffel Hall's or 67 Irving Place's and are weighing its next chapter, The Kantha Team would be glad to walk through it with you. Schedule a Consultation.
