Table Talk: NY restaurateur uses Midas touch on new venue

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - Restaurateur Harry Poulakakos, who founded Wall Street's popular haunt Harry's, is using a golden touch on a new venue in Manhattan's financial district, opening Gold St., the area's first 24-hour eatery.

Poulakakos, who has worked in restaurants in lower Manhattan for 51 years, said the time was right for a 24-hour restaurant to serve breakfast and lunch to the Wall Street crowd, and dinner and drinks to the rising number of people living in New York's financial district.

But although the restaurant's tables, details and finishes are in gold, Poulakakos said the food would be down-to-earth fare, suitable for traders by day and partygoers at night.

"It is not a fine dining restaurant but a solid American casual restaurant," Poulakakos, who has seven other restaurants in Manhattan, told Reuters.

"It is hard to find a good breakfast around Wall Street but this restaurant will serve one."

The restaurant, opening this week, will serve breakfast items at all hours, ranging from cinnamon buns to French toast, to the traditional fry-up.

The opening of Gold St. comes about a year after Poulakakos's son Peter reopened Harry's on Hanover Square, a favorite haunt for traders fictionalized in Tom Wolfe's "Bonfire of the Vanities." The bar closed in 2003 after a slump in business.

But Poulakakos said the area had recovered since the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, with a rising numbers of residents and companies moving downtown.

New York's financial district has been enjoying a residential real estate boom with stores like Tiffany's and Hermes moving in but this is the first 24-hour eatery.

Gold St., located on Gold Street between Fulton Street and Maiden Lane, is a joint venture by Poulakakos, his son Peter, Michael Jewell and Danny McDonald -- his partners in the Ulysses Folk House in the same area.

Poulakakos, 68, immigrated to the United States from Greece in 1956 when he started work in the financial district as a busboy at Delmonico's Steakhouse. He opened Harry's in 1972.

"The area has changed tremendously. When I started it was a lot of townhouses and no one around at night. Now it is skyscrapers and always busy," he said.

Under the direction of executive chef Patrick Vaccariello, also the executive chef of Harry's Cafe and Harry's Steak, Gold St. will be serving a range of food from sushi to steak.

"The Wall Street crowd are always looking for high quality steak and they won't be disappointed," said Poulakakos.

Details:

Gold St. opens to the public on Saturday, April 14

2 Gold Street

Telephone - 212 747 0797

Opening hours - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.