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Gov­er­nors Island Issues RFP For Mobile Food & Announces New Out­door Cafes for 2018

Feb 6, 2018 3:10 pm

Gov­er­nors Island now accept­ing pro­pos­als for sea­son­al mobile ven­dors and food trucks at 3 sites

6 out­door cafés and beer gar­dens to open in 2018 at Liggett Ter­race and the Man­hat­tan Fer­ry Landing

The Trust for Gov­er­nors Island today issued a Request for Pro­pos­als (RFP) for sea­son­al mobile food ven­dors on Gov­er­nors Island. Build­ing on the Island’s rep­u­ta­tion as a home for a diverse array of arts, cul­ture and food, The Trust seeks pro­pos­als for self-con­tained food trucks and mobile ven­dors to pro­vide high-qual­i­ty, fresh and afford­able food, cof­fee and non-alco­holic bev­er­age options for vis­i­tors both dur­ing week­days and on week­ends. Ven­dors are invit­ed to sub­mit pro­pos­als to bring their food to Gov­er­nors Island dur­ing the 2018 pub­lic sea­son, which runs May 1 through Octo­ber 31. The RFP is avail­able on The Trust’s web­site. Pro­pos­als are due on March 9, 2018. 

The Trust also announced today that in addi­tion to Gov­er­nors Island’s pop­u­lar water­front bar and restau­rant Island Oys­ter, which will reopen in 2018, five oper­a­tors will open six out­door cafes, bring­ing an excit­ing array of din­ing options to Liggett Ter­race Food Court and an addi­tion­al option at the Man­hat­tan Fer­ry Land­ing over­look­ing the Low­er Man­hat­tan sky­line and Brook­lyn Bridge. Anchor­ing Liggett Ter­race, which serves as the gate­way between the Island’s beau­ti­ful park and His­toric Dis­trict, is Lit­tle Eva’s Beer Gar­den Grill, return­ing for its 7^th year on the Island from the team behind pop­u­lar restau­rant Kevin’s Red Hook, fea­tur­ing grill items, craft beer and their pop­u­lar frozen cock­tails. In addi­tion, Blue Mar­ble Ice Cream, Colom­bian eatery Mi Pequeño Ter­ruño and Pyra­mid Café will return to Liggett Terrace. 

Gov­er­nors Beer Co., a part­ner­ship between the duo behind Alpha­bet City Beer Co. and Eduard Frauned­er from the pop­u­lar East Vil­lage eatery Edi and the Wolf, will also return to Liggett Ter­race for its sec­ond year to oper­ate a beer gar­den pair­ing NYC-brewed beers with Aus­tri­an sausages and burg­ers. For the first time, the Gov­er­nors Beer Co. team will expand their oper­a­tion on Gov­er­nors Island, open­ing a new pop-up fea­tur­ing tacos, tequi­la and mez­cal craft cock­tails and more locat­ed at the east­ern end of the Man­hat­tan Fer­ry Land­ing.

“With more New York­ers than ever spend­ing the day explor­ing Gov­er­nors Island dur­ing our six-month sea­son, we’re delight­ed to con­tin­ue to expand and diver­si­fy our food offer­ings,” said Michael Samuelian, Pres­i­dent of The Trust for Gov­er­nors Island. ​“We invite food pur­vey­ors from all five bor­oughs to bring their cui­sine to one of the city’s most inspir­ing settings.”

The out­door cafes announced today respond­ed to The Trust’s RFP for Food and Bev­er­age, released in the fall of 2017. The Trust’s high­est pri­or­i­ty for the Mobile Food Ven­dor RFP is to award sea­son­al per­mits to pro­pos­als that will com­ple­ment out­door cafes, pro­vid­ing high-qual­i­ty food that reflects the diver­si­ty of Gov­er­nors Island’s vis­i­tors and their appetites. This diver­si­ty should be reflect­ed in the range of ven­dors, price points, types of cui­sine and vari­ety of choic­es with­in a giv­en menu. Spe­cial con­sid­er­a­tion will be giv­en to ven­dors who demon­strate sus­tain­able busi­ness prac­tices and uti­lize com­postable ser­vice ware. 

There are three sites avail­able through this RFP. The first, the Kings Avenue Food Court is a tree-lined street flanked by his­toric build­ings locat­ed at the heart of Gov­er­nors Island adja­cent to Liggett Ter­race. Kings Avenue will be home to mul­ti­ple sell­ers of dif­fer­ent types of food. For the first time, The Trust will offer two addi­tion­al sites to mobile ven­dors, one at the Gov­er­nors Island Wel­come Cen­ter, locat­ed behind the Man­hat­tan Fer­ry land­ing for cof­fee ven­dors only, and one near Pier 102/NYC Fer­ry Land­ing and adja­cent to Nolan Park, which serves as the cen­ter of Gov­er­nors Island’s art and cul­tur­al activ­i­ty dur­ing the sea­son. Pro­posers are wel­come to indi­cate a pref­er­ence for one loca­tion or anoth­er, and may also pro­pose food at both loca­tions, as well as their days of oper­a­tion pref­er­ence. Use of these sites will be per­mit­ted for one sea­son dur­ing the six-month peri­od from May 1 through Octo­ber 31. 

Since open­ing to the pub­lic in 2005, mobile food ven­dors and food trucks have been at the heart of the Island’s food and bev­er­age offer­ings, with dozens of ven­dors from all five bor­oughs feed­ing the hun­dreds of thou­sands of New York­ers who vis­it each sea­son. The RFP released today presents an excit­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty for New York City food ven­dors and small busi­ness own­ers to be a part of one of New York City’s most unique and beloved pub­lic spaces and recre­ation­al des­ti­na­tions with a fast-grow­ing audience.

To sub­mit a pro­pos­al for a tem­po­rary food vend­ing per­mit, vis­it www​.gov​is​land​.org. Pro­pos­als are due on March 9, 2018 at which point The Trust will review all appli­ca­tions received. The Trust will be in touch with Respon­dents in late March.

Gov­er­nors Island is open sea­son­al­ly to the pub­lic between spring and fall. An increas­ing­ly pop­u­lar and acces­si­ble sea­son­al des­ti­na­tion just min­utes from Low­er Man­hat­tan and Down­town Brook­lyn, the Island is home to near­ly 90 acres of expan­sive open space, a rich cal­en­dar of pub­lic arts, edu­ca­tion­al and recre­ation­al pro­gram­ming and spec­tac­u­lar views of the Stat­ue of Lib­er­ty, har­bor and Low­er Man­hat­tan skyline. 

In 2018, Gov­er­nors Island will be open every day from May 1 through Octo­ber 31. The Island is open from 10 AM to 6 PM on week­days and from 10 AM to 7 PM on week­ends, Memo­r­i­al Day, July 4 and Labor Day.