Updating the retail picture: Flatbush Avenue and Bergen Street (and the $6 cereal bar!)

Well, Leslie Albrecht of DNAinfo did what I was unable to do, attend the Community Board 6 committee meeting on liquor licenses Monday, so she provided many details on the upcoming restaurant next to Shake Shack, in Michelin-Starred Restaurateur Opening 'Speak-easy Sushi Bar' Near Barclays:

The Japanese hospitality company... Plan Do See, Inc. operates restaurants worldwide and owns Sushi Azabu, the Greenwich Street sushi den tucked below the Japanese restaurant Daruma-Ya. Customers enter through Daruma-Ya and have to ask to be seated downstairs at Azabu, which won a Michelin star in 2007.
A similar concept is in the works for the 3,700-square-foot Flatbush Avenue space, which will have a New American restaurant and bar on the ground floor and roof, and a "speak-easy sushi bar" below ground, the co-owners told Community Board 6 on Monday night.

There's no name yet, but the liquor license application got an approval vote, which is advisory but usually presages State Liquor Authority approval. Partner Peter Levin suggested that the restaurant would serve both local and arena patrons, which has been a crossover goal for the Pintchik family of landlords.

CB6's permits committee approved the new establishment's liquor license application, but the State Liquor Authority has final say on the license.

A closing on Bergen

Albrecht also reported, Bergen Street Comics Closing After 6 Years in Business, with no details yet on exactly why:

“I’m so bummed that Bergen Street Comics is closing. The ‘perfect block’ of comics, Babeland, and Gorilla coffee is over," wrote Erik Hinton on Twitter, referring to the nearby adult shop and cafe.

This is Bergen Street between Flatbush and Fifth avenues, a very curated street of small businesses, at least on the south side.

The $6 cereal bar

And, guess what, the news of a cereal bar (!) in the sneaker shop Kith got surprisingly big play in the New York Times food section, with photo, To Munch: Cereal With Toppings From a Clothing Retailer:

New York has its first dedicated cereal bar. A small white-tiled alcove just inside the renovated Kith clothing and sneaker store in Brooklyn has 24 brand-name cold cereal varieties, with toppings. The cereals come packaged in single-serving Mylar bags that fit into small shoe boxes, from which the cereal can be eaten. The boxes are designed by sports figures — Andre Agassi has done the first one. There is no salad-bar-style display because the owner Ronnie Fieg does not like food out in the open. Milk, coffee and cereal-flavored soft-serve are also sold. Mr. Fieg says he has been obsessed with cereals since he was a teenager, mainly because he was not allowed to have sweet ones. Before the store opens, there is an express window to the street for cereal: Cereals from $6 with milk, ice cream from $5.50, Kith Treats, 233 Flatbush Avenue (Bergen Street), Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, 347-889-6114, kithnyc.com.

I get that they have to charge more for convenience and packaging, but I'll be curious to see how many people want to pay $6 for cereal.