Downtown Syracuse bar/restaurant to close; space for lease

Liehs & Steigerwald, downtown Syracuse

Liehs & Steigerwald, a restaurant/ bar at 117 E. Fayette St. in Syracuse, is closing in the next weeks after deciding not to renew its lease.Photos by Alaina Potrikus

Syracuse, N. Y. — After almost six years, Liehs & Steigerwald is closing its downtown restaurant/bar location.

The restaurant at 117 E. Fayette St., a spinoff of the successful meat market/butcher shop on Syracuse’s North Side, will likely remain open for a few more weeks, said co-owner Jeff Steigerwald.

The lease with landlord Washington St. Partners expires in June, but the restaurant will likely close before then, said Steigerwald, who co-owns the Liehs & Steigerwald businesses with Chuck Madonna. It will open as usual on Tuesday (April 20).

The original Liehs & Steigerwald’s butcher shop at 1857 Grant Blvd. remains open and is “doing quite well,” Jeff Steigerwald said. It has been in operation since 1936.

“We’re probably doing as well there as we have at any time in the past 10 years,” Steigerwald said.

He and Madonna may look for another location for a downtown restaurant, but have no immediate plans. “We’ll take our time and see what happens,” Steigerwald said.

Neither Steigerwald nor Pat Scutari, part of the management team at Washington St. Partners, would comment on the reason for the decision to end the lease. Last year Washington St. Partners filed a lawsuit claiming Liehs & Steigerwald owed back rent dating to May 2019.

The downtown Liehs & Steigerwald’s opened in June 2015 and was originally intended as a restaurant, bar and boutique food shop. The menu featured burgers, pastrami sandwiches and German specialties like bratwurst and other sausages, along with draft and bottled beer and wine. The market section offered cuts of meat from the original Liehs & Steigerwald’s butcher shop and other grocery items.

Over time, the food market section of the shop was downsized, and Steigerwald and Madonna added coffee, ice cream and other selections.

It served lunch and dinner, and was especially popular as a downtown lunch spot before the Covid-19 pandemic cut into the number of workers in the area.

The restaurant space in the McCarthy Building is now listed as available for lease, said Scutari of Washington St. Partners.

The available retail/restaurant space is 1,500 to 3,000 square feet, according to the listing, and much of the infrastructure needed for a restaurant, such as hood and exhaust systems and a grease trap, are included.

The McCarthy Building is also home to the Wildflowers Armory gift shop at street level and McCarthy Mercantile, a retail space on the lower level.

More on food and dining in Syracuse

Downtown Syracuse diner to close for good: ‘Covid got the best of us’

Downtown Syracuse’s new full-service grocer: An inside look (photos)

Off-season State Fair Food Fest returns: This year, it’s walk-up, not drive-thru

Riley’s is back: Inside the 13-month journey to popular Syracuse restaurant’s reopening

Don Cazentre writes for NYup.com, syracuse.com and The Post-Standard. Reach him at dcazentre@nyup.com, or follow him at NYup.com, on Twitter or Facebook.

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