One of Rockville Centre's best restaurant addresses has live paperwork again. On September 18, a company called RVC Food Group LLC filed with the State Liquor Authority for a full restaurant license at 13 N Park Avenue, the storefront steps from the LIRR station where Catch 13 went quiet this spring. The application, filed under number NA-0340-26-127945, cleared the agency's intake the same week.

The filing does not carry a trading name, so it does not yet answer the question every regular has: is Catch 13 coming back, or is the corner getting its next name? Either way, the paperwork means somebody is investing real money in reopening one of the most visible dining rooms in the village.

What happened to Catch 13

Catch 13 arrived in 2024 with a menu that ran American and Mexican at once, birria tacos next to pan-seared salmon, margarita flights next to a late-night menu that stretched toward 3 a.m. It gave North Park Avenue something the strip did not otherwise have, a kitchen that stayed up as late as the village did.

Then, on April 20 of this year, the restaurant told its followers it was temporarily closing because of an unexpected circumstance. Five months later, that notice is still the last word. The restaurant's website carries the same message, the delivery apps list it as temporarily closed, and the dining room has stayed dark through the whole summer season, the busiest stretch of the Rockville Centre calendar.

There is a paperwork wrinkle underneath the closure, too. State records show no liquor license was ever issued under the Catch 13 name. The most recent license at the address, issued in March 2024 to a company called Set Sayles Hospitality for a restaurant named Nosh on Park, expired at the end of this past February. Whatever else the spring closure involved, the address has had no active license since winter, which means any reopening was always going to start with a fresh application. Now there is one.

A corner that keeps changing names

The state's own records tell the story of 13 N Park Avenue better than any review site could. In November 2016 the address was licensed as GM Club Steak. In January 2023 it became Snaps American Bistro, the Rockville Centre outpost of the Wantagh restaurant, under a company set up just for that second location. In March 2024 the license changed again, this time for Nosh on Park. Catch 13 operated the room most recently. That is four names inside a decade, on a block where the neighbors mostly stay put.

That churn is not a verdict on the address. If anything it proves the opposite: operators keep betting on this corner because the fundamentals are hard to argue with. North Park Avenue is the spine of Rockville Centre's restaurant row, one of the densest dining strips on Long Island, and number 13 sits at the north end of it with the train station traffic walking past the windows. Rooms like that do not get abandoned. They get recycled.

Who filed

RVC Food Group LLC is a Nassau County company registered with the Department of State in February 2024, with a service address in Lake Success. The registration date is worth noticing: it falls in the same season Catch 13 was coming together, which leaves open the possibility that the entity is connected to the existing operation and the filing is the first step of a comeback under cleaner paperwork. It is equally possible the LLC changed hands or was formed for a project that is only now moving. The application itself settles none of this, and no signage or announcement at the address has settled it either.

What the filing does establish is intent. A full on-premises restaurant license is not speculative paperwork. It comes with fees, disclosures and a premises the applicant has to control, and nobody files one for a room they do not plan to run.

What to watch

Two things will tell the story from here. The first is the application itself: the recent Nassau County filings this publication has tracked have generally moved from intake to an issued license in a matter of weeks, and if this one follows that pattern, the corner could be positioned to pour again before winter. The second is the storefront. New paper on the windows, a permit board, or a name change on the awning will answer the Catch 13 question long before the state does.

For Rockville Centre, the bottom line is simpler. The village's restaurant row works best when every seat on it is lit, and its most-watched dark corner just showed its first sign of life since April. Whoever ends up on the awning, the corner is coming back.