The owner of the former Micky Mo’s in Woodmere is eager to quickly sell the building, even at a sharp loss.
The building, located at 6 Franklin Pl., includes the restaurant and an upstairs apartment. It’s on the market for $325,000, through A1 National Realty and Auctions.
”The owner is very sick, so we’re doing a short sale on it, which means we’re getting the bank to take $250,000 to $300,000 for the property on a cash offer,” said Les Jansson, the realtor’s listing agent.
According to Jansson, the owner, who he did not name, bought the property about six years ago for approximately $600,000 and opened a café/lounge that had a bar, a full menu and various types of entertainment throughout the week. Jansson said that the owner named the place Micky Mo’s, after one of the entertainers who performed there. The performer ended up buying his own place, of the same name, in Lynbrook a couple years ago.
“The [original] owner came down with cancer and had been in and out of hospitals for two years,” Jansson said. “She couldn’t keep up with the place, so she fell behind on the payments to the bank. She sold the place to Micky, who started missing his rent payments and ended up buying another place."
The realtor said that there was a tenant living in the apartment up until recently, even though it was barely habitable.
“After the restaurant closed down, there was a guy who continued to live upstairs for quite a while,” he said. “But the water and the heat were shut off. He would go down and pay the lighting bill in cash, but not the heat or water. I think he’s an old friend of the family or something. It’s a pretty wild story.”
Jansson says that despite the reasonable purchase price and the good condition of the restaurant, finding a buyer has been a challenge.
”We have tons of interest in renting, but we need someone who wants to buy,” he said. “It’s been a restaurant for over 50 years. It’s all set up.”
From about 1983 to 1998, Mike Doyle of Woodmere owned a bar at that location called Cousins. He said that prior to that, it was called Pub 76.
“It’s possible that place has been a bar going back to the 40’s or even the 30’s,” Doyle said. “They even called me a while back to see if I wanted to buy the place back. The money was good when I first started, but then the neighborhood started to change, things weren’t the same. Plus, the DWI laws really hurt us.”
The store sat vacant for several years until Micky Mo’s opened up, according to Anastasio Politidis, owner of , which is next door. He suspects that part of the restaurant’s downfall could be due to lack of consistent hands-on management. He said that the owner had a full-time job in the medical field, which may have left little time to run her Woodmere business. Politidis also claims that several people in the neighborhood thought it wasn’t a good fit for the Five Towns.
“From day-one," he said, "it never really caught on.”
