Max Fish owner Ulli Rimkus confirms that she has signed a one-year lease renewal with her managing agent at Arwen Properties, and she says her sub-leaser, the Pink Pony, will be staying on another year as well. She tells us the agreement was a simpler, “no strings attached” version of the one she first balked at, and the rent was much lower than the original $20,000 per month she says she was first offered. “They came down, but we still have to pay more,” says Rimkus. “It’s not unreasonable, but it’s more.” Rimkus won’t wait till the end of the year to search for a new location; she’s already scouring south of Houston and on the Bowery, and says “there’s possibilities — the list is long.” She doesn’t yet have a timetable but tells us, “I just hope we have a smooth transition and can carry our things from one place into the other.”
It’s all great news, but don’t tell it to Steve Lewis: Yesterday, before all of this broke, he wrote that even if the Fish finds another location, the Lower East Side will never be what it was. “Max Fish may somehow find a way to remain close, but the edge has edged itself someplace else.”
