Former Rockville Centre Chat Noir tea house building to be revamped

The new owner of a Rockville Centre building that once held popular tea house Chat Noir has big plans to upgrade the property — and bring in a new retailer.

Platinum Star Realty, which purchased the building in August for a little under $1 million, plans to gut renovate the interior, redo the facade and lease it to a new tenant, said Tom Bigansky, the owner of Rockville Centre-based North Village Realty, who arranged the sale.

Platinum Star Realty plans to finish the renovation to the roughly 2,800-square-foot building in the spring, Bigansky said, He also is searching for a new tenant — like a restaurant or cafe or other shop — to take over the 1,350-square-foot space.

"The hope is to bring the corner back to life with an active retail use that adds something positive to Merrick Road and the Village of Rockville Centre," Bigansky said. "We would like to see it contribute to the vibrancy of the downtown area."

The 228 Merrick Rd. building was built in 1910, and will get a more modern feel with the upgrades, said Matt DeGiaimo, principal at The DeGiaimo Group, the Rockville Centre-based architect renovating the building.

"It’s going to be a more downtown open feel, with garage doors that open up to let air in for a restaurant’s bistro seating," DeGiaimo said.

The building had housed Chat Noir since the mid 2010s, when the high-tea style eatery expanded into the space formerly occupied by a CD shop. Chat Noir opened in 2009, Newsday reported.

Douglas Mashkow, who ran the CD store CD Island, bought the building in 2005 for $500,000, according to property records. 

Now a Walgreens manager, Mashkow said he loved the building, which he worked out of for nearly two decades from 1996 to 2015, but it was time to move on.

The building was "great for my CD store, great for Chat Noir, and I hope the next tenant does well too," Mashkow said.

Chat Noir, known for its French onion soup and small sandwiches, closed in 2025 after 16 years in business — though ownership did not share why the eatery had shuttered at the time, Newsday reported.

In June 2025, two restaurant workers sued Chat Noir for allegedly not paying overtime wages, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court. Marcus Monteiro, an attorney for the employees, said the case against the previous owner of Chat Noir was resolved, but that the lawsuit against the current owners is ongoing.

Chat Noir denied the allegations, and argued that because the restaurant made less than $500,000 in gross annual revenue in the three years before 2025, they were exempt from those pay requirements, according to court filings.

An attorney for Chat Noir did not immediately respond to requests for comment.