He's Opening a Gourmet Grocer in Tribeca. Maybe You've Heard?

Meadow Lane is ready at last. It only took six years and 685 TikToks to get here.

- ELLA QUITTNER

Meadow Lane also has had one of the most protracted and well-documented opening sagas in recent history. "No one wants this to open more than me," says the store's founder, Sammy Nussdorf. Now—430-plus days, several permitting snafus, and roughly 700 TikTok posts into this endeavor—he says he is making final preparations to unlock the doors after passing a Con Ed inspection and getting the gas turned on. The 28-year-old has been posting through it all as @brokebackcontessa, amassing more than 126,000 followers by documenting taste tests as well as the tribulations of opening a retail space in New York. Most videos begin with a refrain that has become TikTok canon: "I'm opening a gourmet grocer in Tribeca."

Nussdorf says he's funding his project with his own savings from years spent investing in venture capital on behalf of his family office. (Nussdorf's father made his money distributing health, beauty, and household essentials;