Kathy Kirpatrick, the owner of Life Cafe, is apparently pretty peeved that her business is still shuttered as a result of a dispute with her landlord. In a series of messages posted on Facebook, the owner considers converting the cafe at 10th Street and Avenue B into a space that would host “events around the theme Art Against Greed.” Two days prior to that post, Ms. Kirkpatrick noted, “It’s been three weeks this weekend since I had to close with a hope and a dream to be able to reopen. I, a single woman warrior, am fighting two Goliaths with deep pockets for Life.”
Daniel Maurer At 433 East Ninth Street, between First Avenue and Avenue A, Zohar Zohar and her husband Yaniv Zohar have opened Zucker Bakery, complete with Stumptown coffee. Why not Zohar Bakery? Ms. Zohar explains that her maiden name, Zucker, means “sugar” in German. But a German bakery this is not – Ms. Zohar, who put in time as a line cook at restaurants like Daniel before taking time off to bake at home for her family some ten years ago, was raised in Israel by Eastern-European Jewish parents. She described her baked goods – mostly cookies – as “a collection of stuff I like, made from recipes given down from my friends, mothers of my friends, my mother, my mother-in-law.” Read more…
Meredith Bennett-Smith The pizzeria’s interior as of last week.In August, bright orange signs appeared in the windows of 334 Bowery, announcing the summer opening of Forcella, a sister location of Giulio Adriani’s recently opened Williamsburg pizzeria. Now it’s autumn, and Mr. Adriani tells us that due to delays, his Neapolitan pies will come to the Bowery closer to Halloween. The former home of Bowery Tattoo is landmarked, he explained, so “everything is much more complicated.” Read more…
Susan Keyloun 200 Avenue A, earlier this summer.The owners behind a proposed art gallery and restaurant at the former site of Superdive, one of the most controversial East Village bars in recent memory, will soon formally go before the State Liquor Authority, a spokesman confirmed yesterday. The last time 200 Avenue A was on the radar, Michael Taub, the owner of the building, was met with skepticism by Community Board 3 and Councilwoman Rosie Mendez after pitching the art gallery idea, which would feature a D.J., full service bar and stay open until 4 a.m. on weekends.
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Daniel Maurer While we have our lens trained on Cooper Square today: The Local was shocked to see that the price of a spicy chicken sandwich went up by 25 cents at Cafe Zaiya — a sign that even one of the neighborhood’s cheapest eateries isn’t recession-proof.
Yesterday, the Japanese cafe raised the price of a pre-packaged onigiri with salmon (a triangle-shaped rice cake) by 25 cents to a whopping $1.75. And the spicy chicken sandwich — a favorite around the Local office — is now $4.25, up from $3.95.
“Gas is up. We have to pay tolls a lot,” said Fabian Lima, an employee at the cafe. “We haven’t raised the price since 2003.”
Read more…
Lauren Carol Smith Wendy Barrett’s store may soon be evicted by city marshals.Another longstanding business in the neighborhood is on the brink of closing its doors.
The Village Scandal, a 16-year-old hat shop, is facing eviction from its space on Seventh Street, and the owner is pointing the finger at her property management company.
Wendy Barrett, the milliner who owns the popular shop, has become so desperate that she has written a message on a sandwich board in front of her store asking sympathizers to petition the management company, A.J. Clarke, to stop the eviction.
Read more…
As mentioned earlier, Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer has circulated a letter addressed to Cooper Union president Jamshed Bharucha, describing the embattled St. Mark’s Bookshop as a “35-year-old independent bookstore with deep significance to the neighborhood.” Read it here.
The Villager has more on Life Cafe’s (temporary?) closing. Owner Kathy Kirkpatrick is upset that scaffolding has loomed over her sidewalk cafe for over a year, even though – owing to a dispute between two landlords – exterior repairs to the building have yet to commence. But there’s hope from one of the landlords: “We’re in the process of trying to work this out. Life Cafe is an iconic and great restaurant, and I’d love to see it be a part of the East Village for the next 30 years.”
Linking to NBC New York’s coverage of The Bean’s impending death by Starbucks, Bowery Boogie points out that the location once held Little Rickie, a gift shop that, along with others, was sued by the ‘Bucks for selling “F*ckoffs Coffee” stickers. Meanwhile Gothamist has a run-down of “7 East Village Coffee Spots To Try While You Wait For The Bean To Reopen.”
Khristopher J. Brooks Yesterday, as planned, the owners of St. Mark’s Bookshop met with officials at Cooper Union to request a rent reduction. As previously reported, the 30-year-old bookstore is in the third year of a $20,000-per-month, 10-year lease agreement with the school, an amount co-owner Terence McCoy says is unfeasible in light of the bad economy. At 4:30 p.m. yesterday, Mr. McCoy, along with partner Bob Contant, asked for a break of $5,000 per month. “It was cordial,” Mr. McCoy said of the encounter.
According to Mr. McCoy, their proposition will be taken to the school’s Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees. In the meantime the owners were instructed to gather their financial numbers for the committee.
Mr. McCoy said they went to the school with their rent concerns and financial records last year, to no avail. Now the shop is taking a different approach, proposing to their landlord that it is an East Village landmark. Read more…
Phillip Kalantzis-Cope Life Cafe.Dismay over the sudden closing of Life Cafe — an East Village mainstay for 30 years — swiftly spread around the neighborhood on Monday.
“You have been an amazing and supportive neighbor for so long. I hope you will be back. Thanks for all you have done for the local artists over all these years,” wrote one commenter on the cafe’s Facebook page.
“Please come back soon. You’re a NY landmark. Hate to see all your employees out of work,” wrote another. Read more…
Rachel AronsEast Village fashionistas who are used to hopping on the L train to comb the racks of Beacon’s Closet can now do so without crossing the river. Two Fridays ago, a third location of the popular second-hand clothing store (the first outside of its native Brooklyn) quietly opened at 10 West 13th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. The 2,500 square-foot space is half the size of the Williamsburg warehouse original, but is larger than the Park Slope location. (With crisp white walls and tall columns, it’s also a bit more chic.) Read more…
The movement to convince Cooper Union administrators to lower the St. Mark’s Bookshop’s rent has become so popular that a petition for the store already has over 15,000 signatures. “St. Mark’s bookshop is vital! Please don’t let greed get the better of you!!” one of the signers of the petition wrote. The owners of the financially fragile bookshop have a meeting with Cooper Union officials on Wednesday.
Khristopher J. Brooks St. Mark’s Bookshop at 31 Third Avenue.The co-owners of one of the neighborhood’s most popular bookstores pleaded to members of Community Board 3 last night for help as they struggle to stay in business.
The causes of the St. Mark’s Bookshop’s financial woes (a book industry in free-fall amid the rise of e-readers and online retailers) have been well documented. Things became so dire that the owners even posted an ominous note in the store entrance, saying “Find it here, buy it here, keep us here.”
Now, the store’s owners are pressing their landlord, Cooper Union, to reduce the $20,000-per-month rent for the space in the base of the dormitory building at Third Avenue and Stuyvesant Street. Read more…
Daniel Maurer Dr. Brendan outside the new shop.Yesterday, longstanding rumors that Apple would announce its so-called iPhone 5 at a September 7 event proved to be false. But on St. Marks Place, a local hero among Apple aficionados was unveiling his very latest.
Last year, The Times introduced us to Brendan McElroy, who repaired iPhones out of his East Village walk-up under the name Dr. Brendan. Soon after that story came out, he secured a small storefront at 8 St. Marks Place; thirteen months later, he has grown his team to eight technicians. Last week, he smacked the Dr. Brendan logo on a Fiat 500 that is now being used for house calls. And this Tuesday, he added yet another feather in his cap, by taking over the cell phone store across the street, giving it 1960s-style signage, and renaming it Another Wireless Shop. Read more…
What’s more disconcerting, Anthony Bourdain in a priest’s outfit (Grub Street now has video footage of “Father Anthony” at the aforementioned Big Gay Ice Cream Shop opening) or David Chang modeling a down jacket for Uniqlo? The Times has a look at the Japanese retailer’s new ad series, featuring Mr. Chang (described as a “staple of goodness”) as well as another man who is synonymous with the East Village, John Leguizamo. The Momofuku chef-owner is busy as ever these days: He’ll also be appearing with fellow Villager, Padma Lakshmi and others at the September 13 installment of the Moth reading series, “Moth Eaten: Food Adventures in Epic Proportions.”
EV Grieve notices that the house at 331 East Sixth Street (said to date back to 1852) has been demolished, to the outrage of a few neighbors. The city’s “What’s Going On Here?” sign has been colorfully tagged (anarchy symbol and all) by someone upset about “the destruction of an irreplaceable historic building.”
You’ve already seen the Big Gay Ice Cream Shop’s mural – now see the rest of the beloved ice cream truck’s East 7th Street spin-off. Grub Street has a look inside, and a press release on the B.G.I.C.S.’s Website has all the details, plus promises of a ribbon cutting at noon tomorrow involving “music and freaks and stuff.”
Grub Street has the story on why Avenue C bar Teneleven closed only to reopen recently — a neighbor complained about live performances involving flaming Hula Hoops. The bar’s co-owner says she can’t even fit Hula Hoops in her place, much less light them on fire.
A day after Lost City looked back at Charles Ignatius Pfaff and the bastion of bohemianism he operated at 653 Broadway (Walt Whitman, for one, penned an unfinished poem about the place), Grub Street looks inside The Vault at Pfaff’s, an homage to the 19th-century beer cellar that will grand open over at 643 Broadway next week.
