The historic Walk Street Tavern has been sold to a developer pending approval from the Village of New Hyde Park of an extension to a permit that allows the owner to operate a restaurant at the location and the buyer’s ability to get a loan to finance the acquisition, Blank Slate Media has learned.
Co-owned since 2008 by Jimmy Tubbs and Robert Kloepfer Jr., who also owns the Walk Street Restaurant in Garden City, the tavern is set to be sold to John Murnane, president of Erin Construction & Development Co.
Kloepfer said the partners no longer own the tavern and declined further comment. Tubbs, who is still working at the tavern, also declined comment.
Impact Architecture partner Laura Coletti, who is working for Murnane on the project, said there are still some moving parts to the proposed purchase.
“Nothing is set in stone,” she said. “[Murnane] is still waiting to see if he can get a bank loan.”
The New Hyde Park village board is scheduled to hold a hearing on the special-use permit at Village Hall on Aug. 18.
Murnane has also submitted an application to the village for a permit that would also allow for the first floor of the three-story structure to be renovated and the kitchen to be expanded.
He requested a variance that would allow him to convert boarding rooms on the second floor into apartments and add two apartments on the building’s third floor, according to filings submitted to the Village of New Hyde Park.
He also requested a variance that would allow him to provide nine parking spaces rather than the 32 parking spaces required under village code.
Attempts to contact Murnane were unavailing.
Colletti said the hearing on the variances would be held in September. The applications were filed to the village on July 31.
Village building Superintendent Thomas Gannon said he forwarded the application to the village’s Zoning Board and to the village’s Board of Trustees for consideration.
Coletti said the potential purchase is contingent on the extension of the special-use permit but not the potential renovation.
“I think that he would still renovate the building if he doesn’t get the variance,” Coletti said.
Coletti said that Murnane has been looking to purchase the Walk Street Tavern for years.
According to sources in the New Hyde Park business community, there had been rumors of a possible sale of the tavern floating in recent months.
The tavern was previously known as Henry’s Inn and has been serving customers since the late 1800s.
Tubbs and Kloepfer had developed a reputation for using the tavern to host community functions such as a 2012 fundraiser for the New Hyde Park Little League softball team when it competed at the Little League World Series in Portland, Ore.
Tubbs, however, did butt heads with the New Hyde Park Mayor Robert Lofaro during a Board of Trustees meeting in 2013 after Tubbs was issued a summons for noise violations that he said were ‘unjustified’ at the time.
Tubbs and Kloepfer renovated the building shortly after purchasing what was then known as Henry’s Inn in 2008.
Kloepfer said in a 2013 interview that the location had a personal history for him.
He said had worked for Henry Poleker for six years at Henry’s Inn, starting at age 15 while he was attending Sewanhaka High School. Kloepfer then went to study at the Culinary Institute of America.
Kloepfer’s father, Robert, an ex-chief in the New Hyde Park Fire Department, knew Poleker as a fellow firefighter and also worked at Henry’s Inn, as a bartender, Kloepfer said at the time.
“I have a little bit of history there,” Kloepfer said. “It was a little bit of nostalgia to buy something where I really started out.”
