Bryant Park's Newsstands Now Sell Espresso and Sandwiches. The Park Picked Who Got the Corners.

Bryant Park has two newsstands at its 42nd Street corners, one at Fifth Avenue and one at Sixth. Both now sell food you would actually plan a lunch around. The 1,000-seat restaurant behind the library is still open under a court-ordered stay, and a three-restaurant Japanese venue across 42nd Street is scheduled to open this week. These changes all trace back to the same cause. Bryant Park Corporation, the nonprofit that manages the park, decides who sells food on its grounds, and over the past year it has been choosing new tenants through competitive calls instead of renewing the old ones.

That explains why the park's edges look different this October. Every stall, kiosk and restaurant has a landlord with its own standard for what belongs there.

Why a newsstand here can sell an $11 sandwich

Most of the city's roughly 300 sidewalk newsstands work under rules last updated in 2013. Those rules require the stands to sell periodicals and bar them from selling anything over $10, along with clothing, jewelry and fashion accessories. Curbed reported in July that this is why so many stands carry the same candy, chips, soda and lottery tickets. They also buy from a shrinking group of wholesalers. One industry lawyer told the outlet that twenty years ago there were seven candy vendors, and now there are two.

The exception is the small number of newsstands controlled by the Parks Department, which sets its own rules. The stands at Bryant Park's corners fall into that group. According to Curbed, that exemption is what lets an operator there charge $11 for a sandwich.

Bryant Park Corporation then used the exemption. Dan Pisark, the park's VP of retail services, told Curbed that the previous tenant of the Fifth Avenue stand "was becoming more and more candy-and-soda." The park issued a call for proposals asking for fresher food, and eight local businesses applied with ideas that ranged from a souvlaki stand to a macaron shop.

The two corners on 42nd Street

The winning bid went to an operator the park already knew, and the second corner went to a brand with a following elsewhere downtown.

• Caffé Toscana, near Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. Luca Meacci, a Tuscan native, had run a café from a kiosk inside Bryant Park for more than a year before the park picked him for the newsstand. He told Curbed he spent $150,000 on the conversion. The work included custom display cases, two beverage coolers, an air conditioner, an espresso machine and a sink connected to a water line supplied by Bryant Park. The menu has cortados, pistachio bombolone and prosciutto-mozzarella croissants. Meacci said daily sales had grown more than fivefold since launch. He has also replaced made-to-order sandwiches with premade ones, because, in his words, "the attention span is literally no more than ten seconds."
• Little Biggs, 2 W. 42nd Street at Sixth Avenue. Pisark told Curbed the second newsstand would reopen as a Little Biggs. Eater NY reported that it opened on Saturday, August 8. Little Biggs comes from Little Food Co., the group behind Dos Pasos and City Chik, and it previously ran stalls inside food halls in Chelsea and the Financial District. The Bryant Park stand serves the chain's standard menu, including eggy burritos, a crispy chicken Caesar wrap and vodka chicken Parm.

Parks plans to repeat the model elsewhere. Alexander Han, the department's chief of concessions, told Curbed that three more newsstands are slated to become food-and-beverage stands. They are on Verdi Square on the Upper West Side, near the basketball courts at Sixth Avenue and West 4th Street, and at the southeast corner of Union Square Park. "We're not really interested in using them to sell cigarettes and things like that," Han said.

The same selection process, at 1,000 seats

Bryant Park Corporation ran the same kind of competition for its largest tenant. The result has been in court for more than a year.

Eater NY's September 24 report lays out the background. Bryant Park Grill, the glass-enclosed restaurant behind the New York Public Library, has operated in the park since 1995. It has about 1,000 seats, two outdoor cafés and a large seasonal rooftop. When its lease approached expiration in 2024, the park put the space up for bid. Jean-Georges Restaurants was chosen from 11 candidates, and the incumbent tenant was one of them. The Grill's owner, publicly traded Ark Restaurants, then sued over the selection process.

The Grill generates $26 million in sales a year and is the largest business in Ark's portfolio, which includes oyster bars in Alabama and burger places in Las Vegas. Eater, citing Crain's, reported that the park has spent more than $2.6 million in disclosed legal fees on eviction proceedings.

On Tuesday, September 22, an appellate court stayed any eviction while Ark's appeal proceeds, and the next hearing is scheduled for February. Eater reported that the proposed Jean-Georges deal, which came with a renovation plan, fell through this summer, and that Bryant Park Corporation is still in discussions with Vongerichten. As of mid-October, the Grill is operating, and on Eater's reading it will stay open at least into spring.

For the Fifth Avenue newsstand, the park picked from eight applicants and chose an operator already working on its grounds. The Grill went through the same kind of decision at a much larger scale, and this time the outgoing tenant is contesting it in court.

Across 42nd Street, a building landlord makes its own bet

The park does not control the south side of 42nd Street, and the largest new opening near Bryant Park this fall is there. One Bryant Park is a roughly 10,000-square-foot, two-level space at the base of the Bank of America Tower at 135 W. 42nd Street. WhatNow, citing Crain's, reports that it previously housed Charlie Palmer Steak and is scheduled to open October 15. Eater's fall preview had given September as the target, so the date has already slipped once. Treat October 15 as a schedule until the doors open.

Restaurateur KwangHo Lee of Listen & Feel Hospitality developed the space as three separately run restaurants under one roof:

1. One Bryant Park, the 60-seat flagship, where culinary director Tadaaki "Zack" Ishizaki serves a menu that draws on kaiseki.
2. Kappo Sono, Chikara Sono's 10-seat kaiseki counter, whose menu changes roughly every two weeks following Japan's 24-season calendar.
3. Kumiko Room, a 14-seat Edomae-style omakase counter led by Yoshihiko Kousaka, formerly of Kosaka and Jewel Bako.

STUDIO CANALL founder Osamu Tsuchiya designed the interior, according to WhatNow. The two sides of the street now offer a $150,000 newsstand café and a 10,000-square-foot kaiseki destination about a block apart, and each was chosen by a different landlord using its own standard.

The side streets filled in first

The blocks just south of the park changed earlier in the year, mostly with formats that suit a short lunch break.

Shaver Hall opened at 424 Fifth Avenue on Friday, June 26, according to Eater NY's July openings roundup. It comes from FB Society, and its vendors include Pick & Cheese, Tallow Steakhouse, F&F Pizzeria and Taqueria Al Pastor. Shaver Hall's site currently lists daily happy hours and October events.

Fönn, a Nordic-style café from Lauren Huff, operates inside Talea Beer Co. at 22 W. 40th Street, at the foot of the park. According to Eater NY's September roundup, the café serves skyr bowls, smoothies and toasted sandwiches with Devoción coffee from 7:30 a.m., and Talea's beer is added later in the day. Eater did not give an opening day, but Fönn's own location page now lists daily hours at that address.

October 28 brings the park's seasonal vendors

Winter Village is the park's largest seasonal program, and the 2026 season starts in just over two weeks. Here are the dates bryantpark.org lists for this season:

• Ice skating: October 28, 2026 through February 28, 2027, open daily including holidays. Admission to the 17,000-square-foot rink is free. Hours are 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., extended to midnight from November 19 through January 3.
• The Lodge: October 28, 2026 through February 28, 2027, open 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, with later hours during the holiday period.
• Holiday Shops: opening Wednesday, October 28 at noon and running through January 3, 2027. The park says the 2026 vendor directory is "coming soon."
• Bumper Cars on Ice: returning "after the new year," with dates and tickets still to be announced.

Some sections of the park's Winter Village pages still show text from last season. The dates above are the ones explicitly labeled 2026–27.

Once the Holiday Shops open, the park will hold, all at once, the two converted newsstands at its 42nd Street corners, Meacci's original kiosk inside the park, the Grill operating under its stay, and the Holiday Shops. The Grill's next court date is in February, and Winter Village closes on February 28, so the park's largest tenant decision is due back in court in the same month the skating season ends.

If you own near Bryant Park, or are weighing a purchase on the blocks around it, the way the park chooses its tenants has a direct effect on the streets your apartment faces. Anna Coatsworth follows these Midtown changes block by block and can explain how they affect a specific building and address. Request a Confidential Market Consultation.