Nicole Guzzardi 101 Avenue DIf you read this week’s Voice and thought Yongman Kim’s scheme to relocate the entire Kim’s rental collection to Sicily was pie-in-the-sky, get this: the Kim’s Video mogul tells The Local that he plans to open an “alternative and interactive pizza store” on Avenue D.
Kim’s Video Makes a Pizza, as the venue will be called, will be located at 101 Avenue D, in a new building facing the Jacob Riis Houses that is home to the Arabella 101 rental apartments (it’s also the future home of the Lower Eastside Girls Club).
Mr. Kim said the pizza parlor and wine bar would “intermix the new business and the old using the Kim’s Video mentality and personality.”
If that sounds similar to Two Boots, Mr. Kim thinks otherwise. “My restaurant would be a full-sitting restaurant where young and night owls gather and talk about music, films, art and other cultures,” he told The Local.
The switch to pizza follows what Mr. Kim said was a decline in the video business that started in 2001 and worsened in 2005. “Digital has hurt my business and so has the Internet. It is what caused me to close most of the Kim’s locations,” he said, adding that he had tried, unsuccessfully, to go digital in 1994 (well before Netflix, he pointed out). “I was preparing the Internet venture side of my business. I organized my team and it didn’t work,” he said. “It failed over and over again.”
Shira Levine Kim’s Video and MusicThe Kim’s Video and Music store on First Avenue (the lone survivor out of five) got a 25 percent rent break four years ago, but Mr. Kim said DVD and CD sales were “declining every day and every week” (LP sales, on the other hand, are going strong.)
“We are operating the one location not for profit making,” he said. Still, he wants to be open for at least another five years. “Kim’s Video as an idea and concept was born in the Village and I would like a few more decades with that. I can promise for now that I will be staying there.”
As for Kim’s Video Makes a Pizza, the Fellini fan turned pizzaiolo said, “This project shall be begun as early as in two months.” Michael Prince, an attorney at Besen Retail, which is marketing the 2,400-square-foot retail space at 101 Avenue D, confirmed that there have been “serious talks” with Mr. Kim, but didn’t know whether a lease had been signed. The broker directly handling the space did not return a phone call, but the space’s listing confirms that “gourmet pizza” is headed for the storefront.
Correction: Sept. 17, 2012
An earlier version of this post gave an incorrect location for Kim’s Video and Music. It is on First Avenue, not Avenue A.
