Straphangers looking to wet their whistle as they head to Long Island need look no further: a bar has finally opened at Grand Central’s LIRR terminal.
Tracks, the stalwart watering hole for Penn Station commuters, opened an east-side branch beneath Grand Central Terminal Tuesday, a little more than a year late.
“Tracks is iconic — iconic for Long Island Rail Road customers, iconic for New Yorkers,” said MTA chairman Janno Lieber.
With Tuesday’s announcement, Tracks is the first commercial tenant to set out a shingle in the gleaming white hallways of Grand Central Madison — the Long Island Rail Road terminal buried deep beneath Grand Central’s Metro North tracks which first opened in January 2023.
The station’s 32 storefronts have been papered over with generic photos of shopping scenes since, and hungry commuters’ only options have been a small selection of kiosks with no where to sit while they wait for their train.
Penn-station watering hole, Tracks, opened a Grand Central Madison branch on Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2025, the first retail tenant to open at the station since trains started running in January 2023. (Evan Simko-Bednarski / New York Daily News)
Tracks’ co-owner Bruce Caulfield said he was “beyond thrilled.”
“It’s been years that I’ve been wanting to get into Grand Central with my concept,” he said. “Finally it’s come to fruition.”
Caulfield had told the Daily news earlier this year that the difficulty of venting cooking fumes from a subterranean bar meant the new location would be limited to “more of a small plate menu.” But on Tuesday Caulfield said new kitchen appliances were being used to limit fumes, allowing a fuller menu.
“I just want to welcome everyone to come in and have a cold beer and some oysters,” he added.
Tracks will also be reopening in its original Penn Station location later this year, after being displaced by renovations at LIRR’s concourse there.
As for when any other businesses will come to Grand Central Madison, MTA’s head of real estate, David Florio, said new businesses would likely arrive next year.
Five contracts are currently being negotiated, Florio said, with more on offer in the last quarter of the year.
