After months of plotting, the owners of Kossar’s Bialys on Grand Street have gone public with their renovation plans and their aspirations for world domination.
In the Wall Street Journal, Evan Giniger and David Zablocki talk about their $500,000 face lift for the 80 year-old Lower East Side store. The shop is closing for six weeks while a sandwich counter and grill are added. Yes, you’ll be able to get your bialys with a schmeer! Plumbing and electrical equipment will also be replaced.
Gininger said, “Most people are going to buy a business to earn a living. We bought a business to almost restore a bit of history in New York City and then desire to expand that throughout the city, throughout the country and even throughout the world.”
To that end, a new store will be opened on the Upper West Side and the fledgling entrepreneurs are hoping to debut “a line of partially baked and frozen bagels and bialys.” They have, of course, hired a PR firm to, as the Journal put it, to “design a campaign to raise the bialy’s profile tied to the reopening.”
Giniger and Zablocki bought the bakery in 2013. A third partner, Marc Halprin, is no longer part of the company.
