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Fiorello across from Lincoln Center, Trattoria Dell’Arte opposite Carnegie Hall, and Bond 45 in the heart of the Theater District – has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Fireman Hospitality Group, which also operates as Café Concepts, filed August 9 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, seeking to consolidate the separate entities behind each restaurant under S.M.F. Group Inc. Nine restaurants were operating at the time of the filing, employing roughly 800 people, according to court documents.
The filing comes less than a year after the death of founder Sheldon “Shelly” Fireman, the Bronx-born restaurateur, sculptor and Broadway fixture who died in October 2025 at 93. Fireman opened his first business, The Hip Bagel, in Greenwich Village in 1963, and launched Café Fiorello in 1974 directly across from Lincoln Center – a room that became a default pre-performance stop for Met Opera, New York City Ballet and Lincoln Center Theater audiences, and a post-show late-night one as well. He was known for commissioning artists and designers to shape his rooms: Milton Glaser on Trattoria Dell’Arte, with its wall of oversized “famous Italian noses,” and Hamilton scenic designer David Korins on Bond 45’s West 46th Street home.
Court filings lay out a slow squeeze rather than a single blow. The company entered the pandemic already carrying debt from construction cost overruns and fire losses. Its restaurants are unusually dependent on Broadway, Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center foot traffic, and per the filing, that traffic did not return to pre-pandemic levels until the fourth quarter of 2025. To bridge the gap, the group turned to merchant cash advances beginning in spring 2024, eventually stacking more than 30 advances from 11 lenders and about $5.5 million in obligations with punishing repayment terms.
By March 2026, filings say, operations were no longer sustainable. The company listed roughly $26 million in assets against more than $39 million in liabilities, including nearly $6 million in unpaid rent and more than $3 million in sales taxes. It entered bankruptcy with less than $100,000 in available cash against a weekly payroll of about $690,000, while payment processors held back nearly $6 million in card receipts.
Jordan Meyers of SierraConstellation Partners has been appointed chief restructuring officer. “Without access to additional funding and the continued use of cash collateral… the Debtors would be forced to pivot to a liquidation,” Meyers wrote in a declaration supporting the company’s request for debtor-in-possession financing.
Two locations had already gone dark before the filing. Redeye Grill, the Seventh Avenue brasserie known for its “Dancing Shrimp” and its 6:30 p.m. theater rush, served its last meals on July 12 after 30 years, when the company and its landlord could not agree on new lease terms. A Brooklyn location of USA Brooklyn Delicatessen also closed.
Still operating are Café Fiorello (New York and Washington, D.C.), Trattoria Dell’Arte, Bond 45, two Brooklyn Diner locations on West 43rd and West 57th Streets, Café Paradiso, Paris Bar and Le Jardin, and USA Brooklyn Delicatessen on West 57th. The company, now led by CEO Ben Grossman, is seeking court approval to shed unprofitable leases while it pursues a restructuring or sale.
