French Cuisine May Alter Port Authority’s Reputation
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

A white tablecloth brasserie, Metro Marché, officially opened its French doors yesterday across the hallway from the Peter Pan ticket counter at the Port Authority Bus Terminal — a place where until yesterday the only French fare could be found at the Au Bon Pain.
Once occupied by the Silver Bullet Saloon, the Metro Marché space above the A, C, and E subway station stood vacant for several years. Now it is being filled with the bus terminal’s first fine-dining facility, an early step in a long-term plan to revamp the dingy station into something more modern and elegant.
The terminal, known for its badly lit corridors and low ceilings, is often associated with gloomy scenes of urban life, a memory of the days, not so long ago, when its walls were covered in graffiti and loiterers were a common sight in front of bus gates.
Yesterday, the deputy executive director of the Port Authority, James Fox, spoke of a station “renaissance,” and pointed to Grand Central Terminal as an example of what the bus terminal aspires to become.
A tourist from Spring, Texas, Ross McDonald, said he was “rather surprised” to discover a brasserie at the bus station. Others were quicker to suspend their disbelief and forget their immediate surroundings. “I don’t even think that I’m in Port Authority right now,” a Hoboken resident, Melissa Bartolucci, said as she settled into a low plush booth and began eating a platter of eggs and hand-cut fries.
Metro Marché is owned by Simon Oren, who also owns Nice Matin, Barbounia, Marseille, and Pigalle, among other French brasseries in New York. A manager of Metro Marché, Ty Sully, said he hopes the restaurant will evoke nostalgia for the “classic transit hubs of the past, when people dined in style.”
Under the culinary direction of chef Simon Glenn, formerly of the meatpacking district’s Spice Market, Metro Marché is looking to attract power-lunchers, tourists, and a pre-theater crowd to its tables, according to Mr. Sully. He said he expects a boom in lunch business when the New York Times moves its headquarters into the building across the street, which is currently under construction.
The restaurant is paying $90 a square foot to rent the 5,000-square-foot space from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
In addition to wooing more appealing vendors to fill its storefronts, the Port Authority will release a comprehensive report in the next year outlining development plans for the terminal’s underused North Wing, according to an agency spokesman, Tony Ciavella. “This is obviously a first step,” Mr. Ciavella said of the restaurant opening yesterday.
Vornado Realty Trust and the Lawrence Ruben Company are also in talks with the Port Authority about building a 40-story office and hotel tower above the bus terminal.