Barclays Center is Opening in Two Months

Barclays Center is being built across the street from Atlantic Terminal, Brooklyn’s busiest transportation hub. The Brooklyn Nets will be calling the 19,000-seat stadium home when it opens in just two months. Park Slope, the neighborhood due south of the stadium, teems with restaurants and nightlife. It is a landscape that is changing now more than ever as Barclays Center readies to open September 28th.

Franny's opened on Flatbush Avenue in 2004. Their product-driven menu and commitment to local, sustainable ingredients is exemplified in the food and why Franny’s remains high on the list of the city's better Italian cuisine. The restaurant’s popularity has outgrown the modest size of its 295 Flatbush Ave address. So, when a larger space became available down the street, the Franny's team saw it as the perfect opportunity to grow their vision. Franny’s will relocate this fall to 348 Flatbush Ave. The original location will stay in the family and change its marquee to Marco and focus on handmade pasta and more of a full tour of Italy’s cuisine.

Digest NY asked Franny’s Operations Manager Martin Gobbe for his thoughts on the stadium’s opening:

“Francine and Andrew (owners) had been hoping to be able to open a second restaurant in the neighborhood for a long time. The concept of Marco’s was well in development, and soon after the search for a space began, we were shown the space on Flatbush where the new Franny’s will be. We loved the space and it’s potential, but the thought of the risk of a new venture in such a large space was daunting. So the decision to move Franny’s to a bigger space came from the desire to want to open a new restaurant, but wanting it to be small. Since Franny’s is a proven success (I’m knocking wood now), it made more sense to transplant and open Marco’s in the smaller, more intimate current space.  So the move is a product of our natural growth.”

Dinosaur BBQ is a no frills barbecue restaurant whose original location opened in Syracuse, New York in 1988. A second location opened in Rochester in 1998. Harlem, Troy, and Newark, NJ now all have locations. In March of next year, 604 Union Street in Park Slope will be the restaurant’s sixth location. The stadium was a small part of founder John Stage’s decision to open in the neighborhood, as he told Digest NY via email, “I look at Barclay Center as a nice add on but I would never base a decision on an arena alone. It's all about the community first.”

The stadium has drawn attention from an array of business owners and its opening continues to foster anticipation in the adjacent neighborhoods. Hooters reps have been turned down twice in their efforts to make Prospect Heights or Park Slope the chain's first Brooklyn home. Businesses with a reasonable approach, however, are being welcomed. Restaurateurs are choosing Park Slope not because it falls in Barclays Center's shadow, but because the neighborhood has a sense of community and appreciates good food.