(Left:) Harlem Hops founders, Stacey Lee Spratt, Kevin Bradford, and Kim Harris/ (Right:) The scene at Market 57.

This coming Friday, Apr. 7, is National Beer Day. Just in time for the holiday, Harlem Hops, Harlem’s first black-owned craft bar, will be unveiling its new spinoff, joining more than a dozen women- and BIPOC-owned vendors of food and drink at the James Beard Foundation-curated Market 57 food hall at Pier 57.

As with its uptown flagship, Harlem Hops’s mission at its Chelsea outpost will be to offer a unique selection of beers that will appeal as readily to the casual sipper as it will to the most discerning beer geek. The freshest local craft beers available will flow from the 12 taps at Harlem Hops Chelsea, from small batch, family-owned brewers, and from leading area breweries as well. Cans will also be offered. Harlem Hops Chelsea, Market 57 at Pier 57 in Hudson River Park, 25 Eleventh Avenue, bet. 14th and 17th Sts.

UWS Mermaid Inn to Reopen in More Spacious Digs

The mantra of restaurateurs these days seems to be “Go big.” Last December, Chef Daniel Boulud announced plans for a 16,000-square-foot steakhouse in the Flatiron District. Last week, Blu on the Hudson, a 30,000-square-foot steak and seafood restaurant, opened across the river in Weehawken.

Now it’s the Mermaid Inn‘s turn. The chain, which closed its Amsterdam Avenue location last year, will be reopening on the Upper West Side later this year in a 6,500-square-foot space on Columbus Avenue at W. 76th Street.

Word of the restaurant’s return to the neighborhood will come as welcome news to residents, who kept the moderately priced New England-style seafood spot humming.

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