[EVG photo from February]
More details have emerged about the closing of Yaffa Cafe at 97 St. Mark's Place.
In a Facebook post last week, the folks at Yaffa said, "The city closed our garden, one of our not friendly neighbours complained to the building department, and they came and put 35 families out of work."
In an interview yesterday with DNAinfo's Lisha Arino, Yaffa manager Ron Ramati elaborated.
As previously reported, Yaffa was hit with the double whammy of a DOH temporary closure as well as a notice to discontinue use of their backyard garden.
To DNA:
Ramati ... said he was puzzled by the timing of a recent health inspection, as well as a partial vacate order the city slapped on his backyard dining area, since the patio had been in use for decades and advertised publicly by the restaurant.
“Suddenly, after 31 years, it’s illegal?” Ramati said.
Ramati said the combination of the fines and the ban on using the 100-seat backyard space, leaving only 75 seats inside, meant the longtime restaurant could no longer stay in business.
As for the inspection...
Ramati also complained that the inspector also spent nine hours at a restaurant, a move he found unusual, he said.
“I’ve never seen ever the health department being there for nine hours and being so vicious and rude,” he said, explaining that the inspector spoke "very brutally" to the kitchen and wouldn't let staff serve meals to customers.
If you're not Yaffa-ed out, then you can check out this essay at Brooklyn Magazine. "[I]n the midst of the bank construction and the influx of NYU frat bros, there was a shining light: The Yaffa Cafe."
Previously on EV Grieve:
A Google ad now covers the iconic Yaffa Cafe mural on St. Mark's Place
Yaffa Cafe will be back, though likely without its backyard garden
Yaffa Cafe is officially gone; back garden dismantled
More about Yaffa Cafe closing
14 comments:
The only time you see restaurant owners concerned with the workers' families is when they go out of business. Otherwise, they're content to pay them sub-minimum wages and threaten them with firing if they complain.
I'm sorry defenders of Yaffa, the more we learn about this place the more convinced it should have been shut years ago. Health inspectors must have been shock by what they saw and the bigger question is how did Yaffa pass inspection prior to this? How much money did the back yard bring the restaurant in the 6 months of the year when it is too cold to eat outdoors?
Run a clean kitchen, and you don't have to worry about getting shut down by the DOH a few times a year. Also, 75 seats is huge by East Village standards, so this place should have been able to survive the loss of the garden, which wasn't even open in the winter months. I agree with the previous poster. I used to love this place, but the more I hear, the more I am turned off.
There's a small band of well-connected rich newbies that made a phone call and made this happen. They treat the neighborhood as their own personal playground only to be suited for the likes of them. They move to the city to have that vibrant energy yet they bring much of their suburban lifestyle with them. It is ironic that the people bemoaning the loss of cultural and social diversity in the EV are the ones responsible for that loss.
Also don't be surprised if these newbies are the ones responsible for having that bendy tree chopped down.
@Anonymous 10:15 - your kidding right? Rich, well-connected newbies who live next door or behind Yaffa?
The rich newbies are the ones making all the noise. They aren't the ones being tortured. It is the long-time residents who have to put up with this bullshit.
I know there is an obsession with blaming the younger generation or anyone that hasn't been here for 15 years with any and all of their personal gripes in the area, but they aren't the boogey men you make them out to be. Although that group isn't perfect, they mind their own business.
Also, I doubt there was a hipster cabal to take down the bendy tree.
I'm not here to defend Yaffa, as I don't recall actually having never eaten there (I ate at the 103 back in my after hours days).
But IMO there is something odd about the timing, and something VERY odd about a nine hour DOH inspection, if true. I worked in the restaurant biz when I first moved here years ago and can confirm what Eater says: most DOH restaurant inspections take one or two hours.
This is what is killing our neighborhood. How can anyone here say they should be able to do business with over half their seating gone! That's crazy! No business could withstand the loss of half their real estate. I'm sure their rent wasn't going to go down by half. A 9 hour DOH inspection is the new circle of Hell, that's just ridiculous and before everyone chimes in and says their kitchen must have been awful, realize that this is just out and out harassment. People that don't work in the food or bar industry have no idea what a farce these inspections are. I worked in a place where a sink we used for 9 years was fine but all of a sudden it's now no good and we need to install a new one. Our water test strips were housed in a bag instead or a plastic tube and we were cited. Any little crack or hole, even the 1/16th inch gap below a door was "condition conducive to pest and vermin" None of these things adversely affect your food and even more ridiculous when it comes to bars. We had an inspector that could't tell the difference between a blender and a frozen drink machine, forcing us to get a new license for a machine we don't even have! I'm not saying that Yaffa didn't have issues but a business which was an institution and ran for so many years without incident to be shuttered like this is a tragedy and shame. Nobody put a gun to people's head to work there, people worked there cause they wanted to and now they have no job. People reveling in their closure should beware of what they wish for because I don't see anything coming into that spot that isn't going to be it's own horror show
In my building its the oldie who pays 200 a month making the noise, calling EMS for every little ailment, leaving the apt before EMS arrives, then sues other tenants for allowing EMS into the building to tear down his door when he's not there to answe, calls the dob with some false claim when his landlord refuses to paint his apartment and windows black, and tried to list his apt FSBO when he is renting.
Coming from the other side, while restaurant owners like to make DOH inspections sound like a nuisance, people who eat at restaurants should be thankful they exist. You would be pretty shocked to know about all of the disgusting things inspectors see every day in supposedly good restaurants. Only the real big stuff like rats running free all over the place makes the news. The East Village is especially known for vermin poop. Those of us who have waited tables or are friends with waiters know the deal and know the places to avoid!
4:52 has a point and there do need to be inspections. But the DOH's standards are known to be pretty out of control. Even top restaurants say that they are nearly impossible to comply with. That isn't to say that there aren't still egregious situations with some restaurants that should be shut down, but now its hard to be sure if DOH action comes out of a real issue or plain zealotry. There needs to be a fair balance. I don't know what the situation at Yaffa was, so I can't say whether the health issues should of or should not have shut it down.
Also, it's always an unfortunate thing when a business closes. People put their livelihoods in them, and it affects a lot of people. Even if it is the right answer for it to close, it shouldn't be cheered.
Having lived above Yaffa for three years, every meal I had there for the last year and a half was worse than the one before it. I started as a regular, and at this point I already haven't been for six months. Given the cliff the place has dropped from, I'm glad it's closing. It's just being put out of its misery.
FYI, DOH inspections are public record - you can see exactly why they were shut down in the past. (In the past it was rats rats rats rats rats, but I can't find the one that knocked them out for good).
I suspect they lost their chef and never recovered.
I'm sure 100 people in an alley behind a building was really easy to live with, hardly a peep. That place was known to be devoid of echo, and the patrons were eating so voraciously they barely whispered a word.
100 people. In a backyard with no egress. Drinking. Open 24/7. On a residential street.
And surely it must be legal and safe if they were never caught. Because it's only murder once you are caught, before that it's all allegations.
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