Tavern on the Green files for bankruptcy

NEW YORK -- Tavern on the Green LP, the operator of the 75-year-old famed restaurant in New York's Central Park, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

The partnership listed assets and liabilities of as much as $50 million each in a filing yesterday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

The lease on the site of Tavern, the second-highest-grossing restaurant in the U.S. last year, was awarded to restaurateur Dean Poll last month by the city.

Tavern was founded in 1934 by Parks Commissioner Robert Moses and the lease was acquired in 1974 by Warner LeRoy, whose family owns the Tavern on the Green name, valued at $19 million.

"There're no discussions about selling it," Shelley Clark, a spokeswoman for the LeRoy family said Aug. 28, when New York announced the new lease.

The New York Hotel Trades Council and Hotel Association of New York City Inc. Health Benefits Fund, Pension Fund and Industry Training Fund was named as Tavern's largest unsecured creditor with a claim of $1.8 million, according to the bankruptcy filing.

-- Bloomberg News