Back in March, it was revealed that 5 Napkin Burger owner Simon Oren’s Chef Driven Market LLC secured a fifteen-year deal to build a new restaurant in the Children’s Pavilion at Union Square Park. But a new lawsuit filed against the City of New York and the Parks Department says the arrangement is a commercial use of public parkland that was granted without “necessary approval” from the State Legislature. “The city wants it as a cash cow,” said Geoffrey Croft, a founder of NYC Park Advocates, who claims Oren’s proposed project would result in a potential loss of space for a children’s playground near the site. Oren wouldn’t comment on the suit, but Amy McCamphill, a lawyer representing the city, said in a statement, “We have made a motion to dismiss the law suit, both because the plaintiffs’ claims fail as a matter of law and because many of their allegations are refuted by the terms of the license agreement itself.”
