Booted boardwalk businesses get asked back to Coney Island

From left: Ruby’s Bar and Grill and Paul’s Daughter

A handful of the beloved, longtime Coney Island Boardwalk businesses expected to be shut down in favor of newer attractions at the end of the month got a surprise dose of new life. According to the New York Post, Ruby’s Bar and Grill and Paul’s Daughter are likely to be offered new leases by the same developer that gave them the boot.

The American arm of Italy-based Zamperla, which the Bloomberg administration has given a 10-year lease to improve the boardwalk, had tapped a Miami Beach to replace seven storefronts and operate four sit-down restaurants in a $5 million renovated rendition of the amusement strip. Zamperla inherited a total of 12 Boardwalk stores, nine of which it has moved to evict last year, although seven business were allowed one final summer on Coney Island.

Embarrassingly, Zamperla will have to ask some of the businesses back after the Miami Beach group dropped out of the Boardwalk agreement. The Post said the team renegged after an ice cream shop it opened this summer, Coney Cones, flopped.

Outside of the Boardwalk businesses, Zamperla has fared well on Coney Island drawing large numbers to its amusement parks, Luna Park and Scream Zone. [Post]