Earlier this year Dean & Deluca closed down in The Avenues. They’d been open since January 2009, and I remember posting about it back then and loving the grocery section. But the café was always the most popular part of Dean & Deluca, which is why they’ve now kinda brought it back.
D&D Cafe is an Alshaya home-brew concept that’s based on the Dean & Deluca Café. D&D doesn’t actually stand for Dean & Deluca, but it’s more of a homage to the brand it’s replacing and makes it easier for previous customers to connect with. The menu brings back all the popular dishes from the old café, but in what I think is a better location with a much nicer interior.
The new café is located across from Abercrombie & Fitch, in the space where Bouchon Bakery used to be. It’s a corner spot in the Grand Avenue which gets a lot more daylight than the old location.
Since the café is still closed at the moment I was given a sneak peek ahead of their opening which is next Monday, December 15. If you want to follow them, their official Instagram account is @ddcafekw
11 replies on “Dean & Deluca is back… kinda”
Dungeons and dragons cafe lets goooo
D&D started in the US but it wasnt super popular. It was facing failure. It wasnt until their international expansion that saved the company. D&D international model was a much higher class & was a smart business model.
When it was in the Avenues i enjoyed their store but more on the restaurant side. Great coffee as well.
If you lived in NYC, Dean & DeLuca was an institution. They started going downhill after Pace Development bought them. They had massive lay-offs of some of the company’s most essential employees, ceased to pay vendors & put many of those businesses in danger of closing, and started stocking the shelves with Coke and other mass brands. They faced failure due to extremely bad management, prioritizing spending on things like sponsorship of the US Open rather than paying employees and vendors on time, and adding stores in US markets that made no sense. If you worked in Soho before the sale, you got your morning coffee or lunch there. The original D&D was a destination.
This seems like trademark infringement. The core legal test is “likelihood of confusion”, does the name D&D plus the similar menu make people think it’s an official Dean & Deluca revival? “D&D” is an obvious shorthand for “Dean & Deluca”. I am sure that they have a team of lawyers who looked carefully at this, but even if they don’t get sued, this type of naked licensing will damage their reputation with franchises (for no good reason either, they could have easily come up with a similar concept with a different name).
From what I understood the cafe menu was developed locally which is why it didn’t leave with Dean and deluca. I’m sure they probably ran it by their lawyers and Dean and Deluca. Even if they didn’t they’re not pretending to be a grocery store which is what Dean and deluca is. If they kept the grocery store and called it D&D they’d run into problems probably
From what I’ve seen, Dean & Deluca is a dying brand. Even their NYC branches have seemingly closed down (based on what I saw on Google Maps). It looks like only 2 branches still exist in the world; 1 in Hawaii and 1 in Monaco.
Dean & Deluca resto cafe used to be fun for people watching on a weekend. I am sure this new outpost won’t disappoint, either.
Let’s see if they mess it up like they did with Bouchon… hope not… even Dean and DeLuca was fantastic when it first opened and then they stopped making all the delicious items they used to make and bringing all the amazing imports … same with Bouchon… bad customer service and experience… so i hope they get it right this time
What are you Alshaya’s lawyer now? You might as well go on to say that D&D Café has no relation to M&S Café so that the Marks and Spencer / Futtaim team don’t come after them as well.
Who you talking to?
Now that the rest/Cafe is back please Bring back wood backed chicken.