Business & Tech

Nautically-Themed Dive Bar Turned Into... Donut Shop?

Site of former Navy Yard Cocktail Lounge to house Dunkin Donuts and Subway, according to report.

When the owner of the building housing J.J.'s Navy Yard Cocktail Lounge shuttered its doors in 2010 and replaced the Wallabout watering hole's Cape Cod siding , the possibilities seemed endless.

Would it be the site of the area's newest hip restaurant? A modern version of the dive bar it replaced?

Wrong.

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Instead the space at 38-44 Washington Ave. will be the latest outpost of the Dunkin Donuts and Subway chains, according to the New York Times.

Buried in the Grey Lady's piece on Wallabout's transformation last Friday was word that the owner would lease the space to the two fast-food retailers.

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If the deal goes through, the changes at the former tenement block would be just a part of the area's rapid turnabout from its shabby blue-collar past to a modern, if uncertain, future. 

In November, at Brooklyn Navy Yard opened its doors to visitors. Around that time, the formal transfer from the National Guard to the city removed one of the last barriers to development.

Amidst all of this however, there was a sign that nothing—in real estate, as in life—is certain.

When contacted Wednesday morning, the building's owner, Mark Shariati, wasn't exactly counting his chickens.

"I don't know," Shariati kept repeating when asked to confirm the Dunkin Donuts and Subway deal.

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