The long-vacant building that once housed Sushi Samba in the West Village has a new owner. A restaurant group paid $7.3 million for 87 Seventh Avenue South, the three-level space at the corner of Seventh Avenue South and Barrow Street that has sat empty since the flashy Japanese-Brazilian chain closed its doors there in 2017.
A Deal Years in the Making
The sale was first reported by The Real Deal, which identified the buyer as Group Hospitality, the company behind Boucherie, Olio e Più and Omakase Room. The group already operates all three of those brands in the West Village, though according to the outlet's reporting it does not own any of its existing neighborhood locations — making this purchase a notable shift toward ownership rather than leasing. Group Hospitality has not disclosed its plans for the space, though a source familiar with the deal told the outlet the company may bring a new concept to the area.
The property had been listed for sale by Colliers, which was exclusively retained to market it for $6.75 million, according to the Colliers listing. The brokerage describes a lower level, ground floor and second floor with private outdoor space, with the two upper floors combining for 4,230 above-grade gross square feet and 170 feet of wraparound frontage. PropertyShark, however, lists the building's total square footage differently, putting it at 3,830 square feet — a discrepancy the available records do not explain.
A Steep Discount From the Last Sale
Whatever the exact footprint, Group Hospitality's purchase price marks a steep drop from recent history at the address. W Financial, a firm tied to David Heiden and based in Great Neck, paid $13.3 million in 2018 for the Sushi Samba space and a neighboring residential property, per Commercial Observer — so the figure is not a like-for-like comparison with the new sale. The building had already gone dark by then: Sushi Samba, which leased the space starting in 2000 and became known for repeated appearances on HBO's Sex and the City, closed its doors in 2017 and the property has remained vacant since, the outlet's reporting notes.
That vacancy persisted even after an attempt to fill it. Commercial Observer's 2023 report describes a Japanese restaurant tenant signing a 15-year lease for 5,830 square feet at an asking rent of $143 per square foot for the three-level space. But according to a source familiar with the matter cited by The Real Deal, that tenancy never materialized after a capital partner backed out of the deal, leaving the building empty for years despite the signed lease.
Rooftop Fines and a Contentious History
The building's second-story space has its own complicated backstory. City permitting records referenced in the reporting show that the space's second floor opened later in 2007 after a protracted dispute: the Department of Buildings had cited the property for overcrowding on the roof, where an unapproved makeshift tent had been installed, and the building's then-owner, Alex Varveris, reportedly accumulated more than $8 million in city fines. Varveris also refused to install a permanent second-story structure without a renegotiated lease, before ultimately signing a 2007 deal with the Landmarks Preservation Commission to pay a fraction of the fines and filing permits with the Department of Buildings for an enclosed roof. In the years since, the building has also hosted pop-up events, including shows during New York Fashion Week.
Buying In a Tightening Restaurant Real Estate Market
The purchase lands amid a broader scramble for restaurant real estate across Manhattan. Retail availability in the borough's 11 busiest corridors dropped to 12.8 percent in the second quarter — the tightest the market has been since 2014 — as restaurants have accounted for at least 35 percent of all leased retail square footage citywide over the past decade, according to The Real Deal. Demand has grown so intense that restaurant spaces are now subject to bidding wars, with some deals struck before spaces are even publicly marketed, the outlet has also reported, noting that such spaces are hard to replace because they typically require specialized venting and plumbing.
Even so, rents remain below pre-pandemic highs thanks to a glut of second-generation restaurant spaces, though they are expected to climb quickly in trendy neighborhoods. Rising labor, construction and other costs squeeze profitability for operators paying steep asking rents.
Against that backdrop, buying property outright is emerging as one path for operators looking to escape the leasing treadmill. Colliers broker Dylan Kane, who worked the listing alongside colleagues Zach Redding and Sarah Short, said owning real estate gives restaurants a flexibility and pride of ownership that leasing simply cannot match. Group Hospitality's move echoes a similar strategy from the team behind Rezdôra, whose partner appears to have purchased that restaurant's 27 East 20th Street building for $7.25 million in 2018 before later adding 86 University Place and 12 East 12th Street to its holdings.
Group Hospitality's footprint has grown considerably since it launched in 2010 with its original West Village Olio e Più location. The company now operates nine locations across New York and has expanded its three brands into Miami, Chicago and Washington, D.C. Its newest West Village acquisition sits on the same block as Boucherie West Village at 99 Seventh Avenue, and just around the corner from both Olio e Più at 3 Greenwich Avenue and Omakase Room at 14 Christopher Street — placing the long-dormant Sushi Samba space squarely in the middle of the company's existing neighborhood turf.
