In the entrance to the 50th Street 1 train station in Manhattan are a coffee shop, Tiny Dancer, and a bar, Nothing Really Matters. Someone suggested the location to Adrian Gallo.

It was the site of the long-shuttered Siberia Bar, which was hugely popular in the late 90s and early aughts but closed over a rent dispute. So Gallo knew a bar would work, but a sit-down restaurant?

He opened See No Evil anyway just a few months ago next door, with partner and chef Ed Carew. They did it despite major challenges.

“So, I walked into the space, it was Duane Reade storage. There were boxes, it was raw, and was like, 'I’ll take it,'” Gallo recalled.

“There’s no gas in this building,” Gallo added. “So, I was doing a bunch of research: What type of things I could do electric?”

He found electric ovens that turn out pizzas just as well as wood-fired. And Gallo said there are other advantages underground.

“No matter what it’s doing outside, the weather never changes down here,” he said. “So it’s always nice down here.”

The businesses pay rent to the building above, not the MTA. But the agency is taking notice that food sells in its attempt to rebound from COVID-19 and fill 121 vacant retail spaces out of 195. 

“For many years, it really wasn’t permitted in the subway,” said David Florio, the MTA’s chief of real estate transactions and operations of food and beverage sales. “And we’ve been successful in reintroducing that, and it’s been very popular with the customers.”

Florio said logistics stood in the way of expanding food offerings. 

“A lot of it had to do with utilities in the spaces, whether there was enough water utilities, sometimes they had to be upgraded,” he said. “Also electrical, a lot of the electrical are dated.”

Food has been successful at the Turnstyle Underground Market in Columbus Circle, but that was built with ventilation for cooking. Seventeen spaces are under construction, but most just for coffee and pastries, which has worked for Winfield Street Coffee in the 72nd Street and 86th Street Q train stations on the Upper East Side.

Thirty-one spaces are currently being negotiated, including the former location of the beloved Record Mart in Times Square, as well as several newsstands for grab-and-go and something new.

“On the other side of the Grand Central Shuttle on the Grand Central side, the master tenant for both Times Square and Grand Central will have activated kiosks along the ramp that goes from the shuttle down to Lexington Avenue,” Florio said. “So that’s brand new.”

And vending machines, which used to be very common on subway platforms throughout the system, are making a comeback.

“It’s attractive to vending machine companies, because there’s no labor, except for restocking the machines,” Florio said. “So, we’re doing a licensing agreement with a company for 26 locations that used to be newsstands.”

Florio said while they try to bundle leases for multiple locations, they’re always open to new proposals, including from mom-and-pop stores.

“We’re looking to cast a wider net within the system," Florio said.