{"id":21815,"date":"2024-04-09T07:27:46","date_gmt":"2024-04-09T11:27:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/multi.nycnewsnetwork.com\/brooklynbuzz\/?p=21815"},"modified":"2025-02-13T09:40:34","modified_gmt":"2025-02-13T14:40:34","slug":"franchises-creeping-along-fifth-avenue-take-flavor-out-of-park-slope-residents-and-merchants-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nycnewsnetwork.com\/brooklynbuzz\/franchises-creeping-along-fifth-avenue-take-flavor-out-of-park-slope-residents-and-merchants-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Franchises Creeping Along Fifth Avenue Take Flavor Out of Park Slope, Residents and Merchants Say"},"content":{"rendered":"

By: Hannah Berman<\/a><\/p>\n

Brooklyn’s Fifth Avenue has long been\u00a0the commercial center of Park Slope. In the past thirty years, the street has seen a massive shift toward retail\u00a0due to gentrification;\u00a0practically every storefront is occupied, usually filled with locally-owned, community-oriented businesses.<\/p>\n

That is, until recently, as the shops on the northernmost edge of the retail corridor, close to Barclays Center, are being replaced with franchises. Despite\u00a0Time Out recently naming\u00a0Fifth Avenue\u00a0the\u00a0coolest street in NYC and\u00a0the 13th coolest street in the world<\/a>, there is actually nothing cool happening at the edge of Flatbush Avenue, to the disappointment of local business owners and residents.<\/p>\n

Since the pandemic, chains and franchises have begun spreading from Barclays Center\u00a0into Park Slope, starting with the Shake Shack and Chick-fil-A locations directly opposite the stadium. According to the North Flatbush Business Improvement District, 40% of businesses along Flatbush Avenue\u00a0between Atlantic\u00a0and Eighth Avenues\u00a0are new since 2020; this includes several chains such as Just Salad, Wing Stop, Tend, Restore Hyper Wellness, and Jet\u2019s Pizza.<\/p>\n

Most recently, the first\u00a0<\/strong>few blocks of Fifth Ave coming from Barclays, community-owned businesses have been replaced by Insomnia Cookies,\u00a0Qwench Juice Bar, and a Cinnabon\/Carvel combo.<\/p>\n

The influx of national chains comes at the sacrifice of local businesses that have been struggling since the pandemic. Miss American Pie, a pie shop on Fifth Avenue between St. Marks Avenue and Prospect Place\u00a0is the latest local business to shutter.<\/p>\n

\u201cFinancially, we\u2019re not able to continue,\u201d owner Lindsey Hill told BK Reader. \u201cWe opened six months before the pandemic, and we started off on a bad foot.”<\/p>\n

During the first year of the pandemic, Hill said she\u00a0used up all the money she had saved to pay the rent. When she realized she was out of money, Hill tried to talk to the landlord about a payment plan, or to renegotiate\u00a0the lease, but the landlord refused.<\/p>\n

When Hill first opened, her rent was $6,500 per month; at the time of the store’s closure four years later, the rent was up to $7,150.<\/p>\n

\u201cFifth Avenue is definitely changing,\u201d Hill said. \u201cWe just got a Cinnabon\/Carvel, which \u2014 I love Cinnabon, but at the same time, it\u2019s not really the New York, Park Slope feel that the people love.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new Cinnabon\/Carvel, which opened on March\u00a08, took over the storefront that previously housed Lulu\u2019s Cuts & Toys, a 22-year-old local business that sold toys and did children\u2019s haircuts.<\/p>\n

Brigitte Prat, who owned Lulu\u2019s and still lives above the former store, said she decided to close down because she was tired of working so hard around the clock. She also felt like the community no longer supported\u00a0Lulu\u2019s by shopping locally.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a retailer, as a small business being on the avenue, you really have to be a food or drink service, or nail salon or a service,\u201d Prat said. \u201cThat\u2019s the only thing you can\u2019t buy on Amazon. \u2026 Everyone shops online. They don’t really walk their community, you know? If you knew how many people live in a 20-block radius that didn’t even know I existed when I was closing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joel Hamburger, who owns the property next door to Carvel, said he leased a space last year to a Korean fried chicken franchise called bb.q\u00a0Chicken. According to Hamburger and other local property owners who spoke to BK Reader, landlords often prefer leasing\u00a0space to a franchise\u00a0over a local business because parent companies\u00a0vet their franchisees, and must support them. Leasing to a small business is deemed riskier.<\/p>\n

As a resident of the street, Hamburger\u00a0has mixed feelings about Fifth Avenue’s changing face.<\/p>\n

\u201cPart of me is kind of like, oh, it’s the death of New York City,\u201d Hamburger said. \u201cAnd then part of me is also like, well, that narrative \u2014 that New York City used to be cool and now it’s different \u2014 is kind of tired and stupid. There\u2019s been 30 or 40 cycles like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other residents in the area joke that Fifth Avenue is becoming a mall.<\/p>\n

Jerry Diaz, who has worked at Fifth Avenue restaurants\u00a0Yayo\u2019s and Besito for the past 23 years, laments that higher rents mean fewer people who made this area their home\u00a0can stay in the area.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of local people here, after the pandemic, they sold their house and they went away,” he said. “A lot of locals, they\u2019re not here anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Hannah Berman Brooklyn’s Fifth Avenue has long been\u00a0the commercial center of Park Slope. In the past thirty years, the street has seen a massive shift toward retail\u00a0due to gentrification;\u00a0practically every storefront is occupied, usually filled with locally-owned, community-oriented businesses. That is, until recently, as the shops on the northernmost edge of the retail corridor, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5904,"featured_media":21818,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,514],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-whats-buzzin","category-park-slope-neighborhoods-2"],"yoast_head":"\nFranchises Creeping Along Fifth Avenue Take Flavor Out of Park Slope, Residents and Merchants Say - Brooklyn News and Events<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nycnewsnetwork.com\/brooklynbuzz\/franchises-creeping-along-fifth-avenue-take-flavor-out-of-park-slope-residents-and-merchants-say\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Franchises Creeping Along Fifth Avenue Take Flavor Out of Park Slope, Residents and Merchants Say\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By: Hannah Berman Brooklyn’s Fifth Avenue has long been\u00a0the commercial center of Park Slope. 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