Coney Baloney

City Rendering Imagines the Worst: Ruby’s Replaced by Ruby Tuesday

Joshua M. Bernstein pens a somber good-bye to Ruby’s in the New York Press today. Of Central Amusement’s plan to install a sports bar on the boardwalk, he quips, “Nothing says revitalization like watching the Knicks bumble away another game in spitting distance of the Atlantic surf.” And then there’s the matter of that sit-down restaurant. What exactly will it be? Not necessarily a Shake Shack, it seems. How about a Ruby Tuesday? Too far-fetched, you say?

Well check out the above rendering of the city’s vision for the boardwalk. It’s part of a slideshow that was posted last year (before Central Amusement International came onboard), and it’s still on the Department of City Planning’s website. You might think the artist had a soft spot for Ruby’s when he or she put a “Ruby’s Too” on the boardwalk, a few doors down from what appears to be a Target, but in actuality, the font and name closely resembles that of Ruby Tuesday. Gah!

Of course, renderings are usually just conceptual, and we have no idea how much guidance the city’s Coney Island Development Corporation gave the artist (the CIDC hasn’t returned our phone calls). Nor do we know the extent to which the CIDC is influencing Central Amusement’s tenant decisions (again, the CIDC hasn’t bothered returning our phone calls). But there you have it— the city is proudly presenting a vision of Coney in which Ruby’s is replaced by Ruby Tuesday. If things play out anything like this next year, it won’t be the rides at Zamperla’s new Scream Zone that’ll make you want to puke.

City Rendering Imagines the Worst: Ruby’s Replaced by Ruby Tuesday