The owner of trendy Chinatown bar Apothéke is looking to open a new venue called Cocktail Despirito at 114 Franklin St., where the Grace Bar and Restaurant used to be.
Albert Trummer, an Austrian drink mixologist, is bringing a jazz theme to his new Tribeca venture, but he promised Community Board 1’s Tribeca Committee this week that he would mostly use recorded music, not live bands.
The Tribeca Committee got Trummer to agree to close at 1 a.m. weeknights and 2 a.m. weekends (an hour earlier than he wanted), and they then gave advisory approval to his liquor license, said Michael Levine, director of land use and planning for Community Board 1.
The committee has been concerned that whatever goes into the space not be as disruptive as Grace was until it closed in the summer of 2008. Last June, the Tribeca Committee turned down a different 114 Franklin proposal, for a bar called Amuse, when owner Anthony Daddabbo would not agree to a 1 a.m. closing time on weeknights. Daddabbo never received a license and appears to no longer be involved in the location.
