After the Greenmarket: Where Gramercy Walks This October

The Union Square Greenmarket runs four days a week, all year. Every date on its October calendar lands on a Friday or a Saturday. Since July, the blocks between the market and Park Avenue South have added a cheap bar, a hand-roll counter, a kimbap shop and a wine-led restaurant with a $195 tasting menu. The opening that ties these together hasn't opened yet. Ditto, at 13 East 16th Street, is being built around the market's produce. Its partners have said plainly that they want the space between the ends of that price range.

A gap with a street address

GrowNYC lists the Union Square Greenmarket as open Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., year-round. For most of three decades, the place near the market that answered "where do we sit down after?" was City Bakery at 3 West 18th Street. It opened there in 1990. Eater reported it had closed by October 21, 2019. The space didn't stay empty. In April 2025, Eater reported that Maman was taking over the 7,000-square-foot former City Bakery at 3 West 18th Street as its flagship. Maman's own timeline puts the opening in May 2025.

Andy Baraghani, the cookbook author and former Bon Appétit editor, still gives City Bakery his highest praise. He described it to Grub Street this way:

"It had this incredible chaos from this rotating cast of construction workers, students, professionals, professors, and interns. They made it vital for the neighborhood."

Baraghani and his partner Michael Silber, an investor in Smithereens, Penny and Borgo among others, told Grub Street they saw a void in the city's dining between fast-casual and fine dining. Ditto is their answer. According to the same preview, the menu starts from fresh Greenmarket produce with plenty of acidity. It adds New York staples like breakfast sandwiches and egg salad, kuku sabzi served as a sandwich, a spit that turns thick pieces of cauliflower, and rotating soft-serve flavors. Baraghani says the cooking has Persian accents but that Ditto is not an Iranian restaurant. Daytime service comes first. Dinner, wine and cocktails are planned for later, along with a back seating area that can be reserved for private parties.

Timing is the open question. Eater's fall preview listed Ditto for October. On September 14, The Infatuation noted that it had not yet visited. We could not find a confirmed opening date. Check the restaurant's own site before you plan a Saturday around it.

October's market calendar, by date

Until Ditto opens, the market's own programming is the reason to walk west this month. The dates come from GrowNYC's live calendar, which can change.

Cider Village is the biggest of these. GrowNYC's event page lists tastings from eight New York cideries, an apple cider donut eating contest and apple trivia. The Hudson Valley Apple Project will show up to 55 historical and rare apple varieties, and William Mulan's apple exhibit runs with Photoville. Registration goes through the event page.

The signings are a good fit for Ditto. Three cookbook authors appear on the market's October calendar, and the restaurant everyone is waiting for was founded by a cookbook author who learned to cook from produce like this.

What opened while Ditto was under construction

The rooms that have opened since summer sit at the two ends of Baraghani and Silber's range.

The cheap end. Bernie and Herb's opened Friday, July 31, at 28 East 16th Street, between Fifth Avenue and Union Square West. Eater reported a $9 beer and a shot, a $3 hot dog, and a jukebox that plays 45s like Muddy Waters and Ritchie Valens for 50 cents a song. The partners, Dakota Pollock, David Goldberg and Jose Beltre, all worked at 169 Bar on the Lower East Side. The bar fills what was once the VIP room of Coffee Shop, the Union Square restaurant that helped put the area on the 1990s nightlife map.

The counter. Te No Te launched in early August inside the Sushi Aozora storefront at 15 East 15th Street. It serves open-faced temaki. The Infatuation lists sets at about $23 to $55 and single rolls at $6 to $22. A block and a half north, Roll Over Kimbap opened June 30 at 25 East 17th Street. Its chef and co-founder, Jun Hee Park, previously cooked at Jungsik and Sea by Jungsik.

The top end. Amphora opened Wednesday, September 9, at 43 East 20th Street, in the former Veritas space. Time Out described it as a wine-led restaurant from chef Jack Logue and wine director Chris Miller. The cellar holds more than 2,500 bottles, and the seasonal menu is built to go with the wine. The restaurant's site lists Tuesday through Saturday, 5 to 11 p.m. Menus run $125 for three courses, $155 for four, and $195 for the tasting menu, with optional pairings. Montauk fluke with sungold tomato, melon and shiso and sweet-corn agnolotti with black truffle are both on the current menu.

From the $3 hot dog on 16th Street to Amphora's $195 tasting menu on 20th, these addresses all fall within a short walk of each other. Ditto plans to be a walk-in, daytime-first room cooking from Greenmarket produce, priced between those two ends.

On the Gramercy side of Park Avenue South

East of the avenue, the changes this fall are fewer, and one is still on hold. Triona's closed its original Third Avenue location after the Monday, September 28 Bears game. It reopened next door at 190 Third Avenue, at East 17th Street, on Friday, October 2, as Triona's Vintage Sporting Club. According to Eater's October roundup, the new room has more than 20 screens, vintage sports memorabilia and an updated pub menu with an Irish lean.

The Gramercy Park Hotel at 2 Lexington Avenue still has no published reopening date. When MCR acquired it in August 2023, it announced a 2025 reopening with redevelopment partner MORSE Development. The most recent hotel page we found, from 2025, still describes the hotel as closed since 2020. It lists planned renovations to the lobby, restaurants and bars, all 197 rooms and the rooftop, without a date.

The rest of the season

Two evening dates sit just past the market calendar. On Halloween night, the same Saturday as Ayesha Nurdjaja's signing, Irving Plaza's calendar lists Cypress Hill. On Tuesday, November 10, the Union Square Partnership holds Harvest, which it calls its 28th annual fall celebration, from 6 to 9 p.m. at Civic Hall, 124 East 14th Street. Details are on the Partnership's event page.

The next fixed date is this Friday, October 16. Cider Village opens at 10 a.m. on the market's busiest stretch of the month, two blocks south of the blue-walled room on 16th Street that is still getting ready to open.

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