New York & Tri-State + Midtown New York + Retail | August 27, 2018

UK Restaurant Group Readies NYC Debut

UK-based restaurant Group D&D London, which Related Companies announced as a Time Warner Center tenant last September, will open there in an 11,000-square-foot space next month. To be known as Bluebird London, the eatery will be D&D’s first in the U.S., to be followed in 2019 by an as-yet unnamed concept at Related’s Hudson Yards.

D&D has opened more than 30 restaurants in its namesake city since its launch in 2006. It has also branched out to Paris and Tokyo. Despite this track record, and annual revenues of nearly US$200 million, opening in New York will represent its biggest challenge to date, the Wall Street Journal reported.

“We are not coming in unaware that a lot of people come in and don’t succeed,” D&D Chief Executive Des Gunewardena told the WSJ. However, the WSJ reported that D&D is regarded as the U.K. equivalent of Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group.

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About Paul Bubny

Paul Bubny serves as Senior Content Director for Connect Commercial Real Estate, a role to which he brings 13-plus years’ experience covering the commercial real estate industry and 30-plus years in business-to-business journalism. In this capacity, he oversees daily operations while also reporting on both local/regional markets and national trends, covering individual transactions across all property types, as well as delving into broader subject matter. He produces 15-20 daily news stories per day and works with the Connect team and clients to develop longer-form content, ranging from Q&As to thought-leadership pieces. Prior to joining Connect, Paul was Managing Editor for both Real Estate Forum and GlobeSt.com at American Lawyer Media, where he oversaw operations at both publications while also producing daily news and feature-length articles. His tenure in B2B publishing stretches back into the print era, and he has served as Editor in Chief on four national trade publications. Since 1999, Paul has volunteered as the newsletter editor of passenger rail advocacy groups (one national, one local).

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