From July through the first week of October, Williamsburg's most talked-about new rooms opened within a few blocks of one another. Most are on Grand Street, on Havemeyer Street just below it, or on South 2nd and South 4th streets toward the bridge. Over the same months, the neighborhood lost some of its longest-running names on Berry Street and Bedford Avenue. None of those spaces has a reported new tenant yet. So the dining map is moving south, and the new places are mostly opening in rooms the neighborhood already knows.
Havemeyer Street, between Grand and South Second
The densest cluster is one short stretch of Havemeyer. In July, Eater described Coffee Stain at 142 Havemeyer, which opened Sunday, July 12, as joining Lella Alimentari E Cucina and Dokidoki in "bringing some new energy to this stretch of Havemeyer in recent months." Coffee Stain serves coffee, matcha and pastries in a small room with chrome accents and electric blue trim.
Dokidoki opened ten days earlier, on Thursday, July 2, at 160 Havemeyer, Suite S5. It is a 30-seat bar from A-K Hada, an alum of Please Don't Tell, and Christian Suzuki-Orellana, a semifinalist on Netflix's Drink Masters. The bar has no hard-liquor license, so the drinks run on shochu, sake and local mead. That includes $16 martinis and a honeydew "margarita." Chef Daniel Maysonet cooks Japanese bar snacks with Puerto Rican and Salvadoran touches, including a cod katsu sandwich on shokupan. By October, Dokidoki had made The Infatuation's bar hit list, which singled out its lower-ABV cocktails. It is also on Eater's October-updated map of new cocktail bars.
The most recent opening is the one getting the most attention. Top Chef alum Rasika Venkatesa opened Mythily at 129 Havemeyer on Wednesday, September 30. The restaurant began as a pop-up, then ran as a residency at Fulgurances Laundromat. Its cooking draws on South India, especially Tamil Nadu. The menu includes benne dosa with Jimmy Nardello pepper chutney, and a saffron-cardamom tres leches that plays on ras malai. Venkatesa's partners are Nicolas Chavotier and Varun Kandadi. Within a week, Brooklyn Magazine called it one of its writer's favorite new restaurants of the year. Eater added it to its Brooklyn best new restaurants list.
Those three openings on one block would be a nice local story on their own. They matter more because the same thing happened up and down Grand Street.
Grand Street became the spine, and most of the rooms already had a history
Most of the nearby openings are second or third uses of a familiar storefront. The table lists them in order of opening, from west to east and back again.
| Opened | New tenant | Address | What the room used to be |
|---|---|---|---|
| June | Small Change | 633 Grand St., near Leonard St. | Lady Jay's, for almost 15 years |
| August 27 | Ugly Baby | 364 Grand St., between Havemeyer St. and Marcy Ave. | Emmy Square Pizza |
| September 10 | Food Street | 617 Grand St., at Leonard St. | Mad for Chicken |
| September 12 | My Friend Duke | 90 S. 4th St., at Berry St. | Nicky's Unisex |
| September 23 | Gotham Burger Social Club | 216 Grand St., at Driggs Ave. | Not reported |
| October 6 | Booth's Extra Fine | 62 S. 2nd St., near Wythe Ave. | Mighty Quinn's BBQ |
Ugly Baby is the clearest example. Chef Sirichai Sreparplarn's Southern Thai restaurant opened in Carroll Gardens in 2017 and closed at the end of 2024. Its return, at the corner of Grand and Havemeyer, has double the capacity of the original and a wider menu. One of the borough's most sought-after Thai kitchens picked this intersection when it came back.
The others follow the same pattern on a smaller scale. Booth's Extra Fine comes from the team behind Nobody Told Me, and it takes its name from chef Nick Pfannersteil's grandfather. It runs a Martini Hour every night from 4 to 6 p.m., with $12 martinis, $5 mini hot dogs, $2 oysters and half-priced caviar. My Friend Duke, from the team behind Mug's Ale House, is a corner cocktail bar under a hunter-green awning. Gotham Burger Social Club spent two years in residence at Threes Brewing in Greenpoint. Grand and Driggs is its first permanent Brooklyn location, and it has a full cocktail program for the first time, with drinks around $15. At the east end of Grand, Small Change kept Lady Jay's large backyard and added a plant awning. It also runs a $5 happy hour from 4 to 7 p.m.
The same southward tilt shows up a few blocks east along Borinquen Place, near Keap Street. Harbour Kafe, a Hong Kong-style cafe, opened at 172 Borinquen on July 6. Shenanigans, a dance bar below Kinda Nice, opened at 168 Borinquen on July 10.
There are exceptions. Up at the north end, Liba opened at 107 N. 12th St. on July 28, from the 12 Chairs Cafe team. Cocina Del Sur opened at 52 N. 11th St. Susu's, a neighborhood bar with vinyl DJs from brothers Michael Bishop-Myers and Steven Bishop, opened September 23 at 229 Kent Ave. near North First. Still, the North Side's biggest news this season came from closings.
Berry and Bedford lost places that had been there since the early 2010s
Three long-running addresses north of Grand closed this summer.
Antica Pesa, the Roman restaurant at 115 Berry St. at North Seventh, had served cacio e pepe and Negronis since 2012. It closed in July with a note that read "See you soon. Somewhere new." As of early October, no new address or date has been reported.
Sweet Chick's flagship at 164 Bedford Ave. at North Eighth closed after 13 years. Eater reported the closing signage in August. Greenpointers noted in September that the company had made no formal announcement.
Partners Coffee closed its original cafe and roastery at 125 N. 6th St. on Sunday, September 27, after nearly 15 years. The business began there in 2012 as Toby's Estate Brooklyn. The company explained the closing in an Instagram post that Greenpointers quoted:
"Our lease is up and despite our best efforts to preserve our beloved founding cafe, we have had to face the heartbreaking reality that it is no longer possible to stay."
The same post said it has become harder for small businesses and local coffee shops to stay as the neighborhood changes. Partners is staying in Williamsburg at its newer cafe at 145 Bedford Ave., a few blocks from the original. No successor has been reported for any of these three spaces.
The South Side and the waterfront lost places too. After a decade under the Williamsburg Bridge, Barano at 26 Broadway near Kent closed after service on Saturday, August 30. It was known for hand-pulled mozzarella, 12-inch pizzas and a rotating steak of the week. Oddfellow Ice Cream Co. closed its Domino Park shop at 40 River St. on September 27, after five years. So the turnover is citywide in the usual way. The difference is where the new openings land. On the South Side, empty storefronts on Grand, Havemeyer and South Second have filled within months. On the North Side, the closed rooms on Berry and Bedford still have no new names.
What's still on the calendar near the water
Domino Park's fall schedule, as currently posted:
- Cafe Susanne at the kiosk, Sundays from October 4 through November 1. It is a pop-up, and the park has not described it as Oddfellow's replacement.
- Fall Festival, Sunday, October 18, 1 to 4 p.m. at Domino Square, with crafts, face painting and contra dancing.
- Woof-o-ween, Sunday, October 25, 1 to 4 p.m. at the Fountain, with a costume contest and pet portraits.
- Domino Park Greenmarket, Sundays through November 22.
Confirm on Domino Park's events page before heading over, since park listings can change. From the Fall Festival, Booth's Extra Fine at South 2nd and Wythe is the closest of the new openings. Its Martini Hour starts at 4 p.m., which is when the festival ends.
Storefront turnover like this, with one block filling within months while another waits for its next tenant, is the street-level detail that shapes how a Williamsburg address is valued. If you're thinking about what this fall's openings and closings mean for a home on the South Side or along Berry and Bedford, The Masters Division can walk you through it, block by block. Request a private consultation.
