May 12, 2016 By Christian Murray
A French café is opening on Skillman Avenue in the location that had once been occupied by Rosario’s Pizzeria.
The café, which will be owned and operated by a Frenchman, is expected to open at its 50-12 Skillman Avenue location in mid June.
The owner, who spoke briefly about his concept before Community Board 2’s Public Safety/Public Services Committee last night, said he will be offering light French fare and will be playing French background music.
The café will have between 16 and 20 seats. The owner plans on opening from 10 am through 10 pm on weekdays and until 11 pm on weekends.
Last night, he went before the CB2 committee as part of his application for a wine, beer and cider license. The committee signed off on it and now he awaits the State Liquor Authority to rubber stamp it.
This publication was unable to get the owner’s name before the owner left last night’s meeting.
Uncle Jimmy’s Pizzeria, which is currently located at 41-10 49th Street, was at one point going to be moving in to that location. However, the deal with the landlord fell through.
The new café is opening in an area where there are two popular bakeries/cafes. La Majolaine is located across the street, while Aubergine Café is on the next bock.
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95 Comments
I guess they had the same problem Uncle Jimmys did that’s why he never moved… Between water in the basement, black mold and the smell I went in once he showed me once it was disgusting
Did it open?
This is great news! We need another cafe that has live music and is open late. Looking forward to checking it out …
There are too many French people in this neighborhood already. It’s disgusting seeing them walk down the streets with their little poodles. Ughhh. We need more Mexicans, Indians and Turkish people here. And the wonderful food and culture that they bring. Nothing more elegant than seeing a lovely Bsngladeshi woman walking down the street in her native garb or an old Ecuadorian women coming by with a shopping cart full of bottles that she has picked up on the street. Just wonderful.
My ancestors were considered trash here at one time. How about yours?
Wow El Loco, you seem like a real educated and open minded person. Your comment about ” it’s disgusting seeing them walk down the streets with their little poodles” is real insulting. Open your eyes and think for a moment. This neighborhood is changing maybe your views on the world should too. Your ignorance astounds me.
Go eat at any of the 3 dozen tacos or rotisserie places on the disgusting southside.gross!! Disgusting chemical filled chicken. Their all terrible
Cemitas El Tigre is good though.
Glad to see it. We have a large and growing French population in Sunnyside. Just kidding who needs this Eurotrash? We have one French restaurant in Sunnysidr and no one is ever in there. Who needs another? We need another Bangladeshi restaurant. They have some of the most underrated food in the world!
The basement is filled with mold, I would never eat food that is made there. That is reason uncle jimmys pizza didn’t get in there. He knows, ask him. Tons of mold.
I used to work for Dr. Belli next door, once Rosario pizza closed there weren’t many decent places to eat aside from the Copper Kettle. This should be a welcome change.
Some of the people who work at the Kettle are nasty (and that means you, the Saturday night bartender who thinks she can insult the customers).
Dazies is good,but was better, they need to really step up their game and they can return to the great restaurant experience they once were. Piano bar,high end food. The only real old world italian restaurant around here.
I would love a Greek restaurant. We don’t have any and who doesn’t love Grrek food?
Agreed, but Turkish Grill is close enough.
Turkish Grill is Overpriced and very average.
Like everything in sunnyside.
This neighborhood grows at a snails pace.
Good
I like how there’s no mention of the short lived pizza/deli atrocity that opened in Rosario’s space. We stopped for a slice there to check it out. It’s the only time I’ve ever thrown out a slice of pizza for being inedible
Yeah, that pizza was atrocious! Morons tried to set up some kind of pizza/diner in that tiny place, offering way too many things’ if they would’ve just focused on pizza! IMY Rosario’s ='(
Marjolaine is a bakery. This place says it will be a cafe. There’s a difference.
We need good italian or a salad shop!! That woyld be something!
No, what we really need is some kind of new twist on comfort food, with a fresh artisanal slant. A Swiss fried chicken place with hand reared chickens from Sunnyside Garden and gruyere cheese from cows raised on a roof top farm in downtown Brooklyn (™).
This is terrible trolling. Try harder next time.
What are you talking about, blokey Phil? If you followed my Instagram account “FarmLifeQuooklyn” you’d know I wasn’t trolling.
so dumb
Hee hee!!
Hand-reared? You raise chickens and you rear children. You’re trying too hard; comedy should come naturally.
Yes! Like a hale & hearty.
NO. Sunnyside promotes Mom & Pop shops. You want that corporate crap go to Manhattan.
There are several really good Italian places in the neighborhood. I’d argue we don’t need more of that. I’d go for a good Indian place or Vietnamese.
What are the good Italian places? Pizzerias don’t count.
for me the best one right now is “zio luigi”. it’s BYOB…they’re still waiting on their liquor license.
Zio Luigi is the best. Also SoleLuna, Venturo.
That’s not even counting the cheesy old-school red gravy places like Dazie’s and that other place on Greenpoint Ave I always forget the name of. I don’t think those are as good, though.
good, a real frenchman would tear down those damn awful metal things on the sidewalk. This ones painted like a flag – its about time to get rid of these things!
Yeah, what are those things? Sirens to warn of a nuclear holocaust?
Genius – we are loa
Nobody told you? It’s a secret staircase for an underground bunker. You have to be in the know, to know.
The Podiatrist next door says customers vote with their feet.
Corny
The smell of feet complements stinky cheese.
what skillman needs in that spot is a good pizza parlor. a good slice place. There are 400 apartments east of there that would like to pickup a slice or 2 to take home. and not first walk to 48th st to Jimmy or to that dump Donato’s.
The karate kids don’t need a french cafe next door. nor do their parents.
I fear this place will fail.
marjolaines is not competition if this place stays open into the early evening.
Jimmy’s is not good. I’ll walk to Sunnyside for a slice, or Marabella for delivery. Not only is the latter way better, they always deliver in half the time despite being twice as far from me as Jimmy
Why isn’t Jimmy’s good what’s the issue with the pizza?
Greasy, crust is bland, relatively low-quality toppings, also overpriced ($4/per topping vs $2.75 at Marabella).
Sunnyside Pizza beats them both, but I live just outside their delivery zone, and they refuse to budge on it.
I agree, Sunnyside’Pizza is delicious! Marabella’s is very good also… Let’s not forget about the scicilian slice at pizza boy 2′. Donatos is total sh*t’ the owners are obnoxious and I don’t understand why they try talking like Italians lol’ what is that?
Agreed. The place is also a hang out for friends. They take up all the tables and chairs. I had one slice there and I had to eat it standing up outside because Jimmy and his buddies were horsing around and taking up the entire inside.
And their pizza sucks.
Somebody open a decent bagel joint, for the love of god
I think that place behind the McDonald’s at Woodside and Roosevelt is good
That’s not Sunnyside! To go all the way to Woodside for a bagel is ridiculous.
They’re good though
49th and skillman is not sunnyside, its technically woodside. but agree on the need for a good bagel spot in this neighborhood.
No, sorry, that place is not good. Those are bagels worthy of Worcester, Massachusetts, not a New York neighborhood.
Nah, they’re pretty good.
Or at least a real deli . Can someone tell me a place in the neighborhood for a ” decent” B.E.C. Or a BLT or roast beef sandwich that is edible?
If you want to live in NYC, then move to Manhattan. /sarcafont
This neighborhood doesn’t want to be like Manhattan or Brooklyn. They want to keep it Hispanoamerica, Irish bars, horribly bad Chinese restaurants, Chinese $1 stores, nail salons, and average to bad super markets.
How long did it take for Salt and Fat or Venturo’s to open? Most here don’t know what it was like 10 years ago when it was difficult to find fresh herbs at the supermarket.
There are like three decent restaurants, no interesting bars other than pubs, and certainly no pedestrian traffic or boutiques of any sort other than the bakery place on qns blvd and Stray on 43rd ave. The now closed lobster bar’s attempt at a gallery next door is a joke.
This is supposed to be NYC where you can find a decent bagel or a made to order sandwich practically on every corner. Nobody with any money works here, so that’s why you find a community that could be in New Jersey or Staten Island. Why do you think they call the 7 Train the Third World Express?
This neighborhood is made to be the place where everybody who wants to live in Manhattan or Brooklyn but can’t afford either. You sleep here but live elsewhere.
We’re also not a fan of economic prejudice and cultural snobbery here. Just sayin’.
Also I’m not sure with what decent bagels have to do with any place being wealthy or not wealthy. For the longest time in NYC, decent bagels and corner delis, were the touchstone for working class neighborhoods, not “people with money.” Times have changed.
I’m trying to bring Brooklyn bagel and coffee to the neighborhood. I work with them as a broker. They love Sunnyside
I actually wrote BK bagel a few years ago begging them to open shop here!
Hopefully they actually do open this summer and don’t do a year’s worth of “we’re opening any day now!” like a certain business in the neighborhood that get an inordinate amount of press given it doesn’t actually exist yet.
how cryptic. weird.
how cryptic. weird.
how cryptic. weird.
It has been around for more than 50 years. Do you have to destroy everything?
Marjolaine’s is mediocre at best. Their pastries are hit and miss and they don’t really do coffee there. I once asked for a latte and the girl looked at me like I was crazy. They can’t do a cappuccino either. Their american coffee is just ok. The place is cute and I go there often, but Sunnyside could use a proper cafe
I’m a big fan of their cheese Danish. It’s very good.
A cheese Danish is not French, and probably not even Danish. Why don’t they call it a cheesy American??
And just call this place Marjoram Coffee and we will be right there.
I agree. It lost it’s appeal when the original owners sold it years ago. I stopped getting bread or pastries there long ago. They actually sold the croissants to aubergine when they first opened. Now it’s just bad bread.
Now THATS what this neighborhood needs. A real bakery. Not the crap they sell at the supermarkets in the area. Hmmm. Daily fresh cheap bread. Not the squishy crap americans like.
One of the old owners was a real douche which is a French word!
A French cafe right across the street from Marjolaine’s? This should be interesting.
Fake French. No more lousy Irish music (no offense but it is monotonous hearing about the Easter rebellion all night and about Mommy Molly).
Fabulous! I love it. PLEASE HAVE GOOD COFFEE!!!!!!!!!
Can’t wait for opening day!
“The café, which will be owned and operated by a Frenchman”
that’s a pleasant surprise, i figured the owner would be a hipster transplant.
It can’t be a French ‘ipster?
Because a Frenchman is not a transplant, and can’t be a hipster?! Hahhahahah
The hipsters are already here, THEY’RE ALREADY HERE!!! I saw a dude in a Mets hat drive past me on 43rd Ave the other day in a Camry with a Celtics bumper sticker, blasting, like literally blasting the Red Hot Chilli Peppers the other day. It was a stark realisation that everything’s changing and perhaps not for the good.
Are any of those things are supposed to be signs of being a hipster? Haha, as subcultures go, Red Hot Chili Peppers are more frat boy material. Maybe if you see someone with a manbun riding a roadbike literally blasting James Blake, the hipster invasion will have really started.
thank you for the incredible visual.
I’ve often wondered what you anti-hipster local-yokels meant by hipster… very good to know: Mets hat, Camry, Red Hot Chili Peppers — glad to know its not skinny jeans, ironic t-shirt and a beard.
So you saw someone’s square dad drive by you, then?
That’s just some dude stuck in the 90s
Hm…he doesn’t have a penny farthing or a bicycle made of cardboard, he’s just a transplant. Red Hot Chili Peppers is very mainstream, they have to be blasting music from a vinyl-compatible phonograph with an iPhone plug-in extension that’s attached to his penny farthing from a band called something like “Galactic Cowbells.” And a mustache with a distinct symmetrical curl at both ends.
Please, someone open a lunch counter restaurant on 39th Avenue across from Phipps. We are starving for good food down here! If not that, approach the deli down here to use their commercial kitchen. They don’t use it for anything except boiling eggs. They are experimenting with their stock and trying to develop revenue streams, make them an offer they can’t refuse! A few little tables under the trees on the sidewalk and you’ve got it made.
how much is the rent in that section for a store front?
Ii wish Donato’s would be replaced by a restaurant that offered higher quality food. aside from having a good red sauce it’s “meh”…”double meh” once you factor in the price. my wife and i have eaten there 2-3 times in 3 years.
and it’s funny because italian food is so easy to do well. if Donato’s tried even a little bit they could be so great.
That’s why their spot in Astoria closed. They then proceeded to open a pizza spot in the same location and that is now for sale.
There are two other pizza places with eyesight of the location they opened. You can’t fix stupid
You’ve got Donatos down there lol’
Inedible fake italian food. Nasty neighbors. Dangerous delivery practices.
I’d like to hear more about these dangerous delivery practices.
I was being sarcastic,
Donatos is dog food!
Not even, I wouldn’t feed my dog that stuff’
EVERYTHING IS COMING UP SUNNYSIDE!!!!
I hope they get the mold issue in the basement sorted out. My understanding is that is the reason Uncle Jimmy’s Pizzeria never opened here.
I spoke to someone working on the building and he said they addressed the issues in the basement. Apparently there was a huge grease backup that led to moisture problems but it has been fixed.
Tres bien! The more good food the merrier.
this is good competition for the neighborhoods cafes. all three seem to have their own “coffee niche”. all the cafes will have to step up their game to get our business.
outdoor seating will be a plus for this dog owner. hint, hint…
Yup. Nothing like sitting outside and hearing the bottle and can machines going up the street at the market. And then the venting from the corner laundry. Besides, I love that. . . that. . thing painted like a flag right in front. AND you have the added benefit of sitting on an incline.
Yeah, I want outdoor seating on that stretch of skillman.