After a year of delays, Grand Central Madison is expected to get its first bar-restaurant next month — an eastern outpost of the well-known Penn Station pub Tracks.
“I’m very excited to come into Grand Central,” Bruce Caulfield, co-owner of the transit watering hole, told reporters Monday. “I’ve already hired staff.”
“I grew up on 50th St., I grew up in this neighborhood.” Caulfield said. “Grand Central, to me, means a lot.”
The glistening white hallways of Grand Central Madison — the Long Island Rail Road terminal buried deep beneath Grand Central’s Metro North tracks — has been without commercial tenants since the concourse first opened in January 2023. The station’s 32 storefronts have instead been papered over with generic photos of shopping scenes, and hungry commuters’ only options have been a small selection of kiosks — and no where to sit — while they wait for their train.
But the station’s depth brings with it some limitations — key among them no ability to vent cooking fumes to the surface.
“We’re not going to have french fries and hamburgers like we did at Penn station,” Caulfield said, adding that the pub will have “more of a small plate menu.”
Tracks had initially been slated to open this time last year. But those plans were waylaid by red tape from state liquor authorities and construction difficulties, according to Caulfield.
MTA leadership had initially planned on filling out the remaining storefronts by hiring a so-called “master tenant” — one firm whose job would be to sublet and manage retail spaces on the transit agency’s behalf.
But as previously reported by the Daily News, negotiations for a master tenant fell through after several years.
David Florio, the MTA’s real estate honcho, said Monday that his team was currently negotiating with potential tenants for three additional storefronts — deals he hoped to bring to the MTA’s board within the next few months.
In addition, the MTA is currently soliciting businesses for four additional retail spaces, Florio said.
“We’re hoping to slowly roll these out over the next year or two years,” he said.