After more than a year of having its sign up on the corner of Malcolm X Boulevard and Hancock Street, Mediterranean restaurant Dar525 will be opening by mid-May, an employee confirmed.
The brown paper has come down from the restaurant’s windows at 231 Malcolm X Boulevard, and long gone is the “coming soon” sign we spied last year. Gold letters advertise brunch, lunch, dinner, and drinks on the window panels, and signs of activity are visible on the interior. Tables are stacked in the dining room, the bar appears to be set up, and art covers the visible walls.
While no one was on site when Brooklyn Paper’s sister site Brownstoner visited Friday, an employee at the Greenpoint location said over the phone that the restaurant will open in the next couple of weeks. He said delays were been caused by paperwork — “nothing major.”
A year ago, the business posted on Instagram: “The building department didn’t make it easy for us to get the permits required, and life threw at us a few curve balls, but we didn’t cave in or break under the pressure.”
City records show the restaurant has a liquor license to serve wine and beer. Department of Buildings records show electrical permits from 2022 have been closed out, but permits issued in 2021 and 2022 to convert the space into a restaurant, including plumbing and a change of occupancy, appear to still be open.
The eatery, whose menu includes a variety of flatbreads, dips, kebabs, and salads, opened at 525 Grand Street in Williamsburg in 2012. In 2016, Dar525 opened a second location at 168 Driggs Ave. in Greenpoint.
If the new outpost follows suit with the other two locations, Dar525’s Bed Stuy restaurant will be open 11 a.m. through 11 p.m. daily and will offer brunch on weekends. The brunch and Mediterranean menus will bring something new to the area, which has plenty of dining places but little Middle Eastern cuisine and a scattering of full-service brunch spots.
Within easy walking distance are French restaurant L’Antogniste across the street, Caribbean vegetarian spot Natural Blend, Royal Rib House, and Therapy Wine Bar 2.0, to name just a few.
The corner storefront at 231 Malcolm X previously housed a bodega that closed around 2018, Google Maps shows. The storefront was then renovated by owner Hancock Holding LLC, which bought the building in 2006 for $775,000, city records show.
At the time of the circa 1940 tax photo, a drugstore filled the space. Later, it became a church, a certificate of occupancy from 1976 shows.
This story first appeared on Brooklyn Paper’s sister site Brownstoner.
