5C Cultural Center reopens with coffee service from the Roost

Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy 

Updated: The coffee service/cafe ended service in late March/early April.

There's a new familiar tenant on the SE corner of Avenue C and Fifth Street inside the 5C Cultural Center.

East Village resident Vito DiTomaso, who operates the Roost, the 9-year-old cafe and cocktail lounge at 222 Avenue B between 13th Street and 14th Street, has just debuted a coffee service here to help the 501(c)(3) Cultural Center revamp its business.

DiTomaso has brought in new coffee equipment, painted and refreshed the space, and is creating a series of new menus. The plan is to serve coffee during the day, currently from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m., and soon offer beer, wine and cider in the evenings, along with community programming, live music and events that honor the Cultural Center. 

He is currently training staff and hoping to eventually branch out to food — with to-go plates for lunch and lasagnas, Italian dishes, and Spanish food favorites for dinner.

Meanwhile, longtime 5C Cultural Center proprietor Trudy Silver (above right) will continue with music and other live events on select dates, including an afternoon of programming for MLK Day on Monday. (See this link.)

The Roost settles in on Avenue B

Vito DiTomaso opened the original Luca Lounge on Avenue B back in 1997. The venue closed sometime in the spring of 2012. (Luca Bar remains open on St. Mark's Place.)

Turns out that DiTomaso is making a return engagement to 222 Avenue B with The Roost, a coffee shop-bar hybrid that held a friends-family gathering on Saturday night.

Here's the description via The Roost Facebook page

The Roost is a hideout that pays homage to iconic spaces of the past where high and low can find common ground and drink, eat, laugh and carouse together.

They'll be serving coffee (Brooklyn Roasting Co.) … as well as beer… and we're not sure what else exactly at the moment.

The Roost Facebook page includes a few photos of the interior…





There's also a fireplace.