The Midtown oyster bar where Gov. Cuomo politics over cocktails

Docks, as its known to its best customers, is an unassuming restaurant at the corner of Third Avenue and 40th Street and possibly one of the most likely places to spot Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Cuomo’s office is the same building and the ground-floor restaurant has served as the setting for numerous discussions between him and a range of other players, including Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr., Mayor Bill de Blasio and even negotiations with union leaders from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Long Island Rail Road, according to the Wall Street Journal.

“Docks is pretty much like being in the governor’s office, but with vodka,” Howard Glaser, a former policy adviser to Cuomo, told the Journal. Cuomo’s campaign spent $5,000 at Docks in 2017 according to public records cited by the Journal.

“What happens at Docks stays at Docks,” strategist and former City Hall aide Chris Coffey told the Journal. Coffey has met with Cuomo’s aides at the restaurant.

Docks manager Stephen Olsen told the Journal, his staff “take the privacy of our guests very seriously,” and refused to comment further. [WSJ]—Erin Hudson