New Restaurants Signal Changes in West 90s

An Upper West Side area viewed as a holdout in the thriving real estate market is beginning to see the first signs of change: Trendy restaurants are sprouting up along Amsterdam Avenue in the West 90s.

In the last six months, restaurants with $100,000 renovation budgets have replaced the storefronts along Amsterdam Avenue that once housed a hair salon, a Laundromat, and a medical supplies company.

The area stretching between 86th and 110th streets along Amsterdam Avenue has lagged behind the rest of the Upper West Side in rent levels and in the variety of retail shops and restaurants that have located there. But as more upscale condominium development creeps up from below 86th Street and down from Columbia University, the area is filling in with coffee bars and white-tablecloth restaurants.

The manager of Asiakan, Danny Xu, said he chose to open his bi-level, darkly lit pan-Asian restaurant and lounge in the area six months ago because he saw a new niche for his theme. "This is a good area — it has a lot of chance," Mr. Xu said. "We're happy we're here."

An administrator of a nearby church, Baltimore Scott, who also lives in the area, said the development gives the area a renewed feeling. "These are the kind of restaurants you used to only find below 57th Street," Mr. Scott, who eats at Asiakan weekly, said. "It's becoming a restaurant row."

Even if it means saying goodbye to the "mom-and-pop" feel of the place, that's how the city works, Mr. Scott added. "I'm not happy about the people being displaced, but it's just economics," he said. "That's what happens when a place becomes upscale."

What Mr. Xu wasn't counting on was the heavy competition — another pan-Asian restaurant opened two blocks north three months ago — but he said he isn't concerned."We don't worry about it. We keep food fresh, it's all we can do," he said.

The New York City editor of Zagat's, Curt Gathje, said increasing real estate values across the city are wreaking havoc on the restaurant industry, forcing owners to relocate to less expensive, less developed areas.

"Our theory is restaurants and bars come first to marginal areas and suddenly the neighborhood is chic, and condos follow, then the restaurants can't afford it so they move to a new place," Mr. Gathje said.

In the case of Tandoori, an Indian restaurant, an impending major condo project forced its owner, Tara Gill, out of his original spot on Columbus Avenue, but Mr. Gill was determined to stay in the neighborhood. A year later, he reopened his restaurant near Amsterdam Avenue, undergoing a total renovation and redesign to fit in more with the revitalized atmosphere. "I love the Upper West Side. The people, I know them like they are my family," Mr. Gill, who is from India, said.

For longtime residents of the West 90s, it's apparent that change is underfoot. A resident of the area for 30 years , Bill Brunelle , 59, said the shift has been gradual but is frightening nonetheless. To Mr. Brunelle, the new restaurants offer nothing to the area. "A lot of these places feel generic," he said.

"Landlords are getting vicious to squeeze us out. They want to destroy the community because it will bring gentrification," Mr. Brunelle he said. "The area is going to explode."