Chef’s Club Opening Fast-Casual ‘Counter’ Space Tomorrow with Eggslut Residency
The Chefs Club – the revolving chefs restaurant in the base of the Puck Building – is one day from introducing its new high-end, fast-casual dining concept across the street. Chefs Club Counter debuts tomorrow and features a residency with LA-based Eggslut.
This “Counter” extension is pitched as a more “approachable” version of the original, where chefs from around the world are invited to the kitchen. Each recipe is featured for three months, then other chefs’ dishes are substituted in. “We pay chefs a fee to use their recipes, and they get royalties for sales,” president and founder Stephane De Baets told the New York Times.
Eggslut is the first at bat, as it were, offering daily breakfast options between 7 and 11am, Mondays through Fridays.
The first round will feature breakfast sandwiches from Alvin Cailan of Eggslut in Los Angeles; a ham-and-cheese on baguette from Eric Kayser; a burger from Jean-Georges Vongerichten; and duck rice from George Mendes’s Aldea menu. Linton Hopkins from Atlanta will offer a grain bowl, and there will also be Roman-style pizza by Magnus Hansson. At the spacious restaurant, done in creamy tile with glove-leather upholstery, customers order food at a counter and get a buzzer alert when it’s ready. Beer and wine are served.
De Baets is considering expansion to other locations.
Chefs Club reportedly signed a fifteen-year lease on the 3,400 square-foot store, with an asking rent of about $184K per month (i.e. $650 per square foot). That higher monthly take came at the expense of two local stalwarts. Spring Street Natural was essentially booted by the landlord with an expiring lease and fivefold increase in the monthly dole; Minerva Durham’s Spring Studio in the basement was likewise kicked to the curb. (The latter found refuge at 293 Broome, the former at 98 Kenmare.)