News East Williamsburg

Gourmet grocery store Brooklyn Harvest Market coming to site of old Williamsburg White Castle

October 4, 2019 Brooklyn Eagle Staff
Rendering courtesy of Lee & Associates
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East Williamsburg is getting a gourmet grocery store where drunk men with beards once greased their stomachs with tiny, spongy meat circles debatably categorized as “hamburgers.”

Brooklyn Harvest Market — a high-end supermarket with three other locations — is coming to 781 Metropolitan Ave., the site of the old Williamsburg White Castle, dealmakers announced Thursday.

“This new East Williamsburg location is perfectly situated to meet the needs of the constantly changing neighborhood,” said Garry Steinberg, executive managing director of Lee & Associates NYC, who represented the chain in the sale.

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The new location joins Brooklyn Harvest Market’s other locations in such “constantly changing” neighborhoods as Williamsburg, North Williamsburg and north-of-North Williamsburg (otherwise known as Astoria).

The 10,000-square-foot space will have a butcher, seafood counters and made-in-Brooklyn specialty foods.

The White Castle shut down in 2014, having been open since 1992. The property was purchased in 2015 by a company called Adam America for $23 million, though it had changed hands in 2013 for $6.7 million.

Despite rumors that a luxury high-rise would be built on the lot, only 65 of the 81 units in the eight-story building are luxury units — the remaining 16 are affordable housing.

Brooklyn Harvest Market is expected to open in mid-2020 with a 20-year lease.

White Castle fans, meanwhile, will go on missing the two-and-a-half star experience of the Metropolitan Avenue location, forever memorialized by Yelp reviews like this one from Monique R.:

The location feels a little seedy, especially with bullet proof glass windows and restooms [sic] that require buzzing in and out from staff.

The staff hate their jobs. But i would too if i worked there.

To enjoy a meal here, you need to be plastered. Then, and only then will you enjoy it… only to remember when you are gripping the sides of your procelain [sic] bowl, that you should never ever eat there again…

But you always manage to get wasted and end up here. Its [sic] a vicious cycle.


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