Get those lactose pills ready, because one of New York’s best cheese restaurants is about to get that much better.
Murray’s Cheese Bar is the flagship retailer of artisanal cheese company Murray’s Cheese. Founded in Greenwich Village by Murray Greenberg, Murray’s has been serving New Yorkers the finest egg and dairy products around since 1963. For the past 60 years, Murray’s has grown to become New York’s de facto Cheese restaurant, winning awards every year for supplying the best cheese that can be found in the city.
Today, the brand boasts over 350 locations worldwide, but the original store at 254 Bleecker Street is going stronger than ever. While the brand operates a much bigger flagship store in Grand Central Market with its own charcuterie, New Yorkers still flock from around the boroughs to make a pilgrimage to the cheese bar that started it all. In 2017, the brand was acquired by Kroger Company, and has been aggressively expanding ever since, and can now be found in Kroger markets across the country.
Today, the original Bleecker street store operates a spin-off restaurant next door called Murray’s Mac and Cheese which, shockingly, serves mac and cheese made exclusively with Murray’s fine cheese. Now, it appears that Murray’s president Nick Tranchina is intending to acquire the space next door and integrate it into the original cheese bar. At the moment, Murray’s Mac and Cheese is an intimate, walled-off operation featuring only 561 square feet of space. Wanting to better incorporate the space into their central operation, Nick and the team are planning to remove the division between the two concepts and unite them as one massive space.
The new proposal will see Murray’s add three additional stand-up bars in the space that currently houses the Mac and Cheese restaurant, as well as six new counter seats along the perimeter. To accommodate the change, the original Murray’s will also be rearranging the layout of its furniture to create a more seamless transition between the two spaces. The expansion will see the total square-footage of the space raised to 6,638 square feet, creating plenty of room to host the legions of Manhattan’s turophiles (Google it!). At the moment, Murray’s is fully open for indoor dining and takeout, so hungry readers can visit whenever they want to try out Manhattan’s best cheese.
