We’ve now had a chance to speak with owner Bob Pollock about Acme’s closing, and he tells us he plans to open “a new Acme with a lighter menu,” probably executed by a new chef (Pollock says he’s currently talking to some “very creative guys that are well known in the city right now”). “We’re definitely going to have a lot of Southern dishes,” he says. “It’s going to be a Southern American place, but it’s going to be nouvelle if anything.” He says he’ll focus more on fish and, just like at his upstate venture Buttermilk Falls Inn, he’ll use ingredients sourced from his upstate farm as well as from nearby Hepworth Farms. “There are two types of restaurants in the city today,” he tells us. “It’s either very hip scenes where people don’t give a shit what they’re eating and they just want to be with a bunch of hipsters — you pay a lot of money to be seen in a place. Or you go somewhere where you feel like you’re doing the right thing for your body and the environment. I hope we can succeed in both ways.” He half-jokes, “We’re going to try to jump on everyone’s bandwagon.”
In addition to the menu and purveyor changes that Pollock hopes will make Acme (or Acme Farms, as it might end up being called) “an eatery where you can eat once or twice a week, not a place to go gorge on fried chicken and mashed potatoes,” the interior will undergo a near-total gut renovation. Pollock says his team of investors first opened Acme on a budget of $30,000, and he now plans to make some much-needed upgrades. He’ll turn the downstairs Ace of Clubs into a lighter-hued dining room with a dumbwaiter (there will be “occasional” live music), and he’ll fix up the heating, exhaust, and air-conditioning systems. The restaurant’s interior design will be “contemporized, with more of an organic feel.” Pollock says he may work with others on the revamp (“I might use some creative people — people have approached me from Serge Becker on”), but he doesn’t expect to work with Becker, or do anything like the ill-fated club that the Bowery Beef crew was planning for the space: “I’m too old to do that stuff these days. I want to be as off the radar as possible.”
