Neary's Cherrywood Bar Stayed. Midtown East's Evenings Moved to the Edges.

At 358 East 57th Street, the bar is still in the same place. Neary's original cherrywood bar sits where it stood for 57 years, and it now leads into a 38-seat dining room with ruby-red banquettes and a mural of Sutton Place and the East River by Philadelphia's Bird Studio. The room is now The Derby Club, and it's the clearest marker of where Midtown East's new evening places have opened since midsummer. They're on the edges of the neighborhood. The blocks around Grand Central got something different.

The room on East 57th that kept the bar and the mint jelly

Jimmy Neary opened his pub with partner Brian Mulligan on St. Patrick's Day in 1967. According to Grub Street, it became a gathering place for political and civic figures after Governor Hugh Carey started coming in. West Side Spirit reported that it closed on July 19, 2024. Grub Street reported that when the family sold the building, they chose buyers who were restaurateurs.

The restaurant that followed comes from chef Ed Cotton and his partners Chris Coco and Craig Hutson. The same group runs Leonetta's in Murray Hill and Jack & Charlie's in the West Village. The New York Post's review says the original bar still stands at the front and "Neary's mint jelly" is still on the menu. It also describes a vintage chandelier from the Waldorf-Astoria over the dining room. The Post adds that the restaurant soft-opened in July and wasn't meant to open officially until after Labor Day. The neighborhood took to it so quickly that Cotton opened the doors to everyone right away.

The menu revisits dishes from late-20th-century New York dining as reinterpretations rather than replicas. DiningOut pointed to a Chicken à la King Pot Pie and a steak Diane. The Post's review singled out the lamb persillade, a Thai-style salmon in red curry broth and miso-broiled black cod. The hours tell you what kind of place it is. Dinner runs seven nights a week from 5 p.m., and the bar opens at 4.

First Avenue picked up the same hours

Two avenues east and a couple of blocks north, Bar Enzo at 1073B First Avenue keeps a similar schedule. It's open Monday through Saturday from 5 p.m. to midnight and Sunday from 2 to 10 p.m. The bar comes from Terzo Group, the team behind Greats of Craft, founded by Joe Schinco with co-founder Stella Shepherd. Its own description is a neighborhood bar modeled on family gatherings, built around cocktails, wine, amari and aperitivo. The Infatuation points to separate menu sections for Negronis, spritzes and martinis. The posted brand menu sticks to light food: olives, taralli, cheese and meat-and-cheese boards, and an amaro affogato.

There's an older Bar Enzo in Long Island City. The First Avenue room is a second location, so the Sutton Place end of the neighborhood is getting an operator with a track record.

The morning end of 57th Street has a newcomer too. WatchHouse had opened at 139 East 57th Street, at Lexington, by mid-August, serving specialty coffee and pastries.

The west edge got its evening rooms as well

The same thing happened on the other side of the neighborhood, on the blocks between Madison and Fifth. Dram Central Spirits Lounge opened in August at 14 East 44th Street. Owner Flavien Desoblin pairs the spirits list with a full kitchen. Eight blocks north, iDen's Beijing Duck House at 3 East 52nd Street reopened September 1 after a renovation, with chef Matt Chen reworking the menu, as reported by Eater NY.

That makes four places, opened or reopened between July and September, where you sit down for the evening, at four points around the neighborhood: Sutton Place, First Avenue, East 44th near Fifth and East 52nd near Fifth. None of them is on the blocks right around the terminal.

Around the terminal, the arrivals are timed to a train

The Grand Central Partnership's October 16 roundup of new businesses in its district looks quite different. The list is dumplings, fast-casual Filipino food, a bakery, a sushi-and-bento counter, a coffee kiosk, a barbershop and a sunglasses shop.

The Partnership's own descriptions are written for people passing through. Wasabi is pitched to anyone craving sushi on a lunch break. Barberino's is pitched as a place to look sharp before you catch your train. Grace Farms Café opened this summer on the public plaza outside 270 Park Avenue. Restaurant Associates runs it, and it was open by late June.

Somedays is the one with hours that reach a resident's evening. The Lexington shop is open 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays and 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekends. The bakery was founded by Peter Phillips with pastry chef Arlander Brown, and it calls the Black Sesame Tahini Croissant its signature pastry. A block from the terminal on East 45th Street, Dearbros Omurice was in soft opening as of October 22. It's an Osaka omurice specialist with broth variations and toppings that include kakuni and wagyu.

The neighborhood calendar runs through the middle

The new evening rooms sit at the edges, but the season's big dates run through the center, and two of them are inside the terminal itself. Here they are in order, from the first week of November:

1. November 7. The Rockefeller Center tree is scheduled to arrive, just west of Fifth Avenue.
2. November 9 through December 24. The Grand Central Holiday Fair fills Vanderbilt Hall at 89 East 42nd Street with an indoor artisan market of about 6,000 square feet. It's closed on Thanksgiving Day and runs longer hours during Christmas week. The terminal's page lists the daily schedule.
3. Tuesday, November 24. Grand Central's events listing includes a Thanksgiving Market.
4. Wednesday, December 2, 7 to 10 p.m. The Rockefeller Center tree lighting.
5. Sunday, December 13, 5 to 6 p.m. The Beekman Place Association holds its Holiday Caroling Party at East 50th Street and Beekman Place.

Under all of it is the weekly fixture. The Dag Hammarskjold Plaza Greenmarket runs year-round on Wednesdays from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., on 47th Street between First and Second Avenues.

A November Wednesday that crosses the whole map

Since the openings landed at the edges and the events cluster in the middle, one weekday after November 9 can take in both. Start at the Wednesday greenmarket on 47th Street before it closes at 3. Walk west to Somedays at 560 Lexington for a croissant, then down to Vanderbilt Hall while the Holiday Fair is open. Head west to Dram Central on East 44th for a drink near Fifth, or walk back east to 358 East 57th Street, where the bar opens at 4 and the dining room at 5. The cherrywood bar is the first thing you see when you walk in.

Charlar Acar follows Midtown East block by block, from the Sutton Place end of 57th Street to the passages under Grand Central, and is glad to talk through what is changing on any of them. Get Access To Our Private Listings.