A large outdoor beer hall and concert space is being built in the South Slope — and neighbors in the quiet, semi-industrial area are worried about a roaring frat party.
Greenwood Park — a 700-seat bar and restaurant that’s nearly the size of three pro basketball courts — will open on Seventh Avenue at 19th Street with 40 draft beers, bonfires and live music.
“Think ‘restaurant-bar meets park,’ ” said co-owner Ted Mann, who envisions a huge landscaped yard with trees, picnic tables and a bandshell. “I hope it gets visited in the daytime as much Prospect Park.”
But it’s that type of potential draw — and its appeal as a big daytime drinking destination — that makes some neighbors nervous.
“OK, you’re in an industrial space — but it’s also residential and right across from the MS 88 middle school,” said Aaron Brashear of Concerned Citizens of Greenwood Heights, who is concerned partly because Mann has not spoken to residents next door or Community Board 7. “The question is: Will he be a good neighbor?”
Residents first caught wind of the mammoth facility two weeks ago after a team of graffiti artists painted a 90-foot mural at the site, where a gas station once stood.
A contractor then described the bar as “a beer garden,” but Mann — who learned earlier this year that he is the biological son of gun-slinging, Obama-hating, Detroit power rocker Ted Nugent — said his vision is more like a mammoth garden patio park with beer and grub.
Mann recently spent some time shooting guns and cooking elk on his DNA dad’s Texas ranch — but he has much stronger Brooklyn roots: He owns Cubana Social in Williamsburg, No Name Bar in Greenpoint and Gold Coast deli in Bay Ridge.
His new venue will have a 3,000-square-foot indoor space for cold-weather months — about one-third the size of the outdoor area — and will cater to “everyone: strollers, mommies, dads, 20, 30, 40 and 50-somethings,” he said.
Mann’s plan is to create a picnic-like ambiance — like a more sprawling Gowanus Yacht Club — and serve American craft beer, fish tacos, baby back ribs and fancy hot dogs.
But the most-controversial item on the menu is live music “until 9 or 10 pm.”
If recent history is any indication, pulling the plug on the tunes before 11 could help Mann avoid some friction with neighbors. In a similar case of pre-opening compromise, the owners of Prime 6, a Flatbush Avenue sports bar near the under-construction Barclays Center, eventually eased some concerns by announcing that music wouldn’t continue into the wee hours.
Mann — who has teamed up with Larry Hyland, the owner of Bar Matchless, a concert hall in Greenpoint — said he knows how to communicate with neighbors and plans to abide by nightlife rules when the time comes.
“I’m still trying to get the plumbing done,” he said. “So [community] meetings are a little premature.”
That’s fine by Joe Guerrieri, who owns Joe’s Auto Glass across the street and said he’s happy that the vacant lot will be filled with something lively.
“I’ll swing by for a pint,” he said. “Our customers are gonna like it.”
