For roughly two decades, the best-sited restaurant space on the West New York waterfront sat dark. If you walked south from the ferry terminal toward Son Cubano on a summer evening, you passed a black window at the end of Riverwalk Place and kept going. That window is now a dining room.
The change is bigger than one opening. The Port Imperial promenade has always been a place people commuted through. With the end-cap active and a second slot at 20 Avenue about to turn over, it is becoming a place people walk to.
The End-Cap That Stayed Dark for Twenty Years
The story of that corner is not a design story. It is a litigation story. The end cap of the Riverwalk Place Retail Promenade sat empty for twenty years while a legal battle between the condo association and the commercial owner played out. From the Hudson River Waterfront Walkway you could see straight into an unfinished shell, wrapped in the same panoramic view every neighboring balcony pays for.
Restaurant operator Jeremy Casilli, working with NYC real estate figure Michael Besen, took the end cap at 45 Riverwalk Place and opened it in May of this year. Casilli's own summary of the bet is short. "Waterfront dining isn't just about a view," he said. "It's about creating an experience that lives up to it."
Whether the food lives up to the view is a matter of taste. What matters for the block is that the light is on.
What West & Co. Actually Is
The name is West & Co. Waterfront Brasserie. The design and the menu were both built for a big room, not a small one.
- The space is expected to hold up to 250 guests, which is roughly two Son Cubanos worth of seats added to the corridor in a single move.
- The interior reads as a classic American brasserie with Art Deco influences, warm white oak finishes, curved banquettes, a large cocktail bar, a glass-enclosed private wine room, and an outdoor terrace that overlooks the Hudson and the New York City skyline.
- A hidden speakeasy-style space called The Wax Room sits behind the kitchen with a vinyl collection and turntable-driven music.
- The menu covers French Onion Soup, Mussels & Frites, Branzino Amandine, Octopus Carpaccio, seafood towers, oysters, and rotating butcher cuts, with a cocktail program built around classics.
The kitchen is being run by someone whose résumé does not usually surface in a suburban brasserie. Wander DeBrito is a French Culinary Institute graduate whose background includes Del Posto and Gramercy Tavern. That is a specific choice. Casilli's other Hudson River rooms lean on the view first and the plate second. This one is being staffed as if the plate has to carry.
West & Co. is currently open seven days a week, which also matters. A seven-day operation changes what the block feels like on a Monday.
The Café Slot at 20 Avenue
The second change on the waterfront is quieter but tells you something about the direction of the corridor. Dear Jac, a new café, is coming to 20 Avenue at Port Imperial, taking over the former Gioia Modern Italian Kitchen space, with a Fall 2026 opening teased on social as "where everyday cravings meet something better."
Gioia was a full-service Italian dinner concept. A café is a different animal. It runs on morning and afternoon traffic, not on reservations. The brand is being launched with a minimalist rabbit logo and a modern café-style aesthetic, hinting at a more casual and contemporary concept for the Port Imperial waterfront area.
If you live in one of the towers behind 20 Avenue, that swap is the meaningful one. A dinner room you visit twice a year becomes a coffee stop you visit twice a week.
How the Promenade Reads Now
Walk the Riverwalk Place stretch from north to south and the sequence has changed shape. Here is the corridor as it stands this summer.
| Stop along Riverwalk Place | What it is | What that adds to a resident's week |
|---|---|---|
| Alpha Fit Club | Boutique gym | Morning anchor |
| Ben & Jerry's | Scoop shop | Afternoon walk with kids |
| Son Cubano | Cuban dinner room, long-standing | Weekend dinner |
| West & Co. (45 Riverwalk Place) | Brasserie, opened May 2026 | Weeknight dinner and a bar seat |
| Dear Jac (20 Avenue at Port Imperial, opening Fall 2026) | Café, taking the former Gioia space | Morning and afternoon coffee |
The neighboring lineup of Son Cubano, Ben & Jerry's, Alpha Fit Club, and other spots was already there. What was missing was the connective tissue between the workout in the morning and the dinner on Saturday. West & Co. fills the Tuesday-night slot. Dear Jac, if it lands, fills the 9 a.m. slot. Between them the promenade covers the day.
That is the thesis. For twenty years the corridor was a set of destinations with dead space in between. It is now a continuous block.
A Weeknight, Mapped
If you already live here, the practical shift is that a walk can now go somewhere on a random Wednesday. One version of the loop:
- Leave the tower at 6:30 with the dog and cut down to the Hudson River Waterfront Walkway.
- Turn south along the water toward Riverwalk Place. The skyline is the reward for the first ten minutes.
- Drop the dog at home and walk back down for a 7:30 seat at the West & Co. bar. Order the Mussels & Frites or a dozen from the raw bar.
- Walk home past a lit end-cap instead of a dark one.
None of that was possible on a Tuesday in April.
The Ferry, the Light Rail, and the Sidewalk That Ties It Together
Port Imperial's dining did not add up before because the transit infrastructure was doing all the work. The district sits on an intermodal transit hub on the Hudson Waterfront in Weehawken and West New York, served by New York Waterway ferries and buses, Hudson-Bergen Light Rail, and NJT buses at the foot of Pershing Road along the face of the Palisades. NY Waterway ferries run to the West Midtown Ferry Terminal seven days a week, Battery Park City and Brookfield Place during weekday rush hours, and Pier 11 at Wall Street during weekday rush hours and weekends.
That infrastructure is why the towers filled. It is not why anyone walked the promenade after 8 p.m. The commuter draw and the resident draw were two different economies sharing one sidewalk.
The retail additions this year start to close that gap. A brasserie open seven nights and a café aimed at morning traffic are the two shifts most likely to convert the sidewalk from a corridor into a room.
A quiet way to test this yourself: walk the Waterfront Walkway between 7 and 9 p.m. on a weeknight next month and count the storefronts with lights on. Compare to what you remember from last summer.
What This Changes About Living Here
None of the above is a real estate pitch. If you already own at Port Imperial, none of it affects your equity in the next quarter. What it affects is the daily experience of the address, which is the reason most owners are here in the first place.
Three things to watch through the rest of the summer and fall:
- Whether West & Co.'s dinner traffic pulls foot traffic north from Son Cubano or south from the ferry terminal. Either direction reshapes the middle of the promenade.
- Whether Dear Jac opens on time in the fall and how it handles morning throughput. A café at 20 Avenue with a real espresso program is a different amenity than a dinner room.
- Whether the terrace at the end-cap becomes the default sunset spot. The outdoor terrace overlooks the Hudson River and New York City skyline, and there is no other seated public terrace of comparable size on the West New York side of the corridor.
Those are small questions. They are the ones that determine whether the block feels different a year from now.
If you have lived at Port Imperial for a while, the useful thing to do this month is walk the block you already walk and pay attention to what has changed at the corners. The end-cap is the obvious one. The café slot at 20 Avenue is the one that will matter more on an ordinary Tuesday.
If you own a home at Port Imperial or elsewhere along the West New York waterfront and are starting to think about what this corridor's momentum means for your next move, Scott Selleck and The Selleck Group work with waterfront owners on timing, positioning, and quiet-market conversations. Reach out to schedule a consultation when you are ready to talk.
