(Kristy Leibowitz; Crain’s New York Business/Buck Ennis)
Yo, Mac Daddy — say hello to my little store!
Tekserve, the Apple dealer and repair shop on West 23rd Street that has made itself a mecca for Manhattan’s Mac-obsessed, has competition — and the new guy isn’t concerned about personal space.
An upstart chain called Dr. Brendan’s Mac Repair this week has opened a 500-square-foot shop at 115 W. 23rd St. — just two doors away from Tekserve’s 25,000-square-foot flagship at No. 119.
“I found out about it from a customer on Sunday,” Tekserve CEO Kevin Hart told The Post in an interview this week. “They sent me a photo of it, and I actually thought it might be a Photoshop joke.”
Brendan McElroy, a 30-year-old entrepreneur who has already opened shops in the East Village and Park Slope that tend to sick MacBooks, iPads and iPhones, admits it may be a little unusual for a retailer to open a store next door to a competitor.
But to hear McElroy tell it, the story of the new shop and how it found its home is nothing less than a miracle on 23rd Street.
“I was looking for spaces on the West Side around 23rd Street — I wanted to be in Chelsea,” McElroy told The Post, noting that he had been pounding the pavement one day in early May.
“I noticed there was this completely empty space, this vacant laundromat, and lo and behold, the owner of the building was inside the space.”
Adding that such a circumstance was “extremely rare” after scouting for a new location for months, McElroy says he pounced — despite the fact the space was in Tekserve’s shadow.
“[The landlord] asked us what we planned to do, and I told him,” McElroy said. “The price was right. We looked for a piece of paper. We wrote out a deal right there on a napkin.”
Construction of the sleek, new shop — which has a floor-to-ceiling, glass-and-aluminum façade and an “operating table” service counter that’s under a dozen fluorescent lamps — was kept on the down-low until this week.
Indeed, Tekserve’s Hart says he hadn’t verified that competition was coming until earlier this week, when he “peeked under the canvas” that was masking the new storefront.
“I’m flattered,” Hart said, when asked if he was annoyed at his new neighbor. “Clearly, he thinks he can grow his business by parking next to the premier Apple service provider in New York City.”
After the initial surprise, Hart says he figured that McElroy “may get some of our customers, but I think we’ll get some of his.”
While Brendan’s Mac Repair claims its off-warranty repairs of Apple gadgets are 30 to 40 percent less than what Tekserve charges, its repairs aren’t Apple-authorized like Tekserve’s.
“We have a fair amount of customers come to us with what we do find to be warranty issues,” McElroy says. “Those customers we’ll be happy to send over to Tekserve.”
Still, he admits, “I don’t sense that [Tekserve is] super-happy I’m here.”