Irish Circle to close after bankruptcy auction

Photo by Steven Scnibbe

The Irish Circle Tavern has until mid-May to shut its doors after the bank acquired its building in bankruptcy.

By Rich Bockmann

It’s last call for the Irish Circle Tavern in Rockaway Park, which will be closing its doors after the bank that foreclosed on the 20-year-old bar’s home snatched up the property for $1.25 million in a bankruptcy auction.

A bankruptcy judge in Brooklyn federal court last week approved the sale of the two-story, 9,500-square-foot building at the corner of Rockaway Beach Boulevard and Beach 102nd Street to New York Community Bank for the price of $1.25 million.

Tavern owner Jerry Perich, who also runs the real estate LLC holding title to the building, has until May 15 to vacate the property under the terms of Judge Elizabeth Strong’s January order authorizing the bidding.

Massey Knakal Realty had been retained by NYCB to market the property in the auction, and Queens Sales Director Tommy Lin said the firm will list the property within the next few weeks.

“We’re going back out with a normal marketing plan,” he said.

According to Massey Knakal, a number of prospective buyers showed interest in the property before the auction and the firm sent out due diligence packages with information on its financials to 20 parties, but none chose to follow up with a site visit.

“Of those potentially interested parties, no interested parties took a tour of the property,” Massey Knakal partner Thomas Donovan wrote in an affidavit.

Only one bid came in on the building, a $1.2 million offer by Mark Schachner, owner of the Mill Basin Kosher Deli in Brooklyn.

The Irish Circle, which for years served as the terminus of the Queens County St. Patrick’s Day Parade on the Rockaway Peninsula, fell on hard times after it lost an Off-Track Betting parlor in its restaurant when the bookmaking business folded in 2010.

The recession and an acrimonious business split also took their toll, and by the time the bank filed a foreclosure action in November 2011, the bar had been in arrears for nearly two years on rent owed to the real estate arm of Perich’s operation.

In August 2013, the realty company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection listing assets of $1.4 million and liabilities of $3.5 million, $3 million of which were owed to the bank.

Late last year Bankruptcy Judge Elizabeth Strong ordered Perich to begin making rent payments and square away the water and property tax bills, but when the company came up short, the court ordered the building put up on the auction block.