Yesterday afternoon, Jeremiah Clancy, owner of Mama's Food Shop on East Third Street and Avenue B the last six years, sent around the following letter to various media outlets and patrons and others...
We'll run his letter in its entirety ... he pretty much nails the problems that small businesses face... and what the East Village has become...
It is with a heavy heart that I have to announce the closing of Mama’s Food Shop in the East Village, NYC as of last evening. After fifteen years in business (six being under my management) it is finally time to say goodbye. We have had many wonderful years and are forever grateful to all of you for eating with us and making our little place feel so special.
Due to increasing rents and property taxes, and the constant expenses that arise when maintaining an older building, it has become no longer possible to keep our doors open. I have no distain for the landlords in the East Village, for they are put in a precarious position of having an overhead that they too cannot afford.
Sadly, it is the small businesses that suffer from the escalation of the above market commercial rents and property taxes. I now join the ranks of Kate’s Joint, Zaitzeff, Life Café, and Lakeside Lounge; all business that have folded in a neighborhood going through a period of flux.
I look forward to seeing what the East Village becomes (Avenues A-C especially), for at this moment it is a neighborhood that is in the midst of change. Avenue B is a ghost town commercially, the community nature of the neighborhood has all but vanished, and it is over-run every weekend by a generation that has no vested interest in the East Village community except to visit on the weekends.
By no means is this an indictment to the new, younger generation, it is more of an admission that much of the steady business for bars and restaurants has moved to Brooklyn and the high residential rents have stripped the neighborhood of the artistic/cultured feel it used to be known for. Mama’s Food Shop has weathered these changes, including surviving the recession, but as these changes started affecting our business, I realized it was the end of an era.
I feel for those who are opening small businesses in New York City in this day and age. We live in a city where the Health Department has far too much power, the cost of the permits, inspections, and maintenance are so high it is impossible for a Mom & Pop operation to keep up with. I know the city needs to make income, yet I am afraid the ways in which they are doing this is going to cost all of our neighborhoods the character that we look for in this city. I am not against banks or chain restaurants going into neighborhoods, just nervous that this is all that will be left once the small businesses cease to exist.
I am a restaurateur and artist who has lived in and loved New York City for almost twenty years. Luckily, the city and its neighborhoods will always be going through change and I am excited for what is to come both in the East Village and beyond. I will move on, get a full time job, and continue to support the underdog small businesses in and around the city. I simply can’t run one anymore — it’s just too damn hard.
We'll be curious to see what happens to the space... we've always heard those rumors that a developer would by this corner space and put in a new apartment building...
33 comments:
Pretty much says it all.
Property taxes, Health Department, permits, and inspections (not saying they are bad or there should be none)...these often (often) go unmentioned, when they can take SUCH a toll on businesses as well. I'm glad to see he noted these and sorry to see Mama's go.
I've been going to Mama's for 12 years... since I moved to the city. I had no money back then and they served huge portions of warm great comfort food that always had leftovers. It is the place my friends and I would treat ourselves to every week back then when we could. ::sigh::
ah damn, i loved going to mama's, such a nice and cozy spot. will be greatly missed.
The Bloomberg legacy.
This just sucks, really it does....at least 3 of the places that were the reason I moved here (and I am not a college student) are now gone. :(
Ugh. I only have a handful of restaurants I go to regularly since I cook at home 95% of the time, but Mamma's was in that group. Thankfully I went last Wednesday to get a final taste. I had no idea it would close a week later. Sad.
yeah it was good but if you went there at 10 PM there was none of the meatloaf left ever.
I don't think all of these restaurants closed for the same reason. Kate's Joint could have stayed on especially with the bar, she just never hired actual waiters. Life Café was always not that good and served weird 90s food in the vein of Wai Cafe and Yaffa Cafe, they just didn't update the menu. Wow had no idea zaitzeff closed-- am surprised cause they served meat and seemed up to date..
I think their Yelp page might offer supplement insight into why they've closed their doors...
Mama's opened an outpost in Williamsburg late last year and it closed within months. I'm curious if this expansion hurt the owners enough finacially that they couldn't keep the East Village location open.
@Grieve, just FYI Mama's Bar is still there on the corner and it is owned by the building owner.
You hit the nail on the head. It is always easy to blame greedy landlords but the rents would not be so high if the taxes and utility bills wouldn't consistently go up at the rates they do every year. New regulations and insurance costs are also sky rocketing as everyone must protect themselves from the lawsuits everyone files incessantly in this day and age.
Many people clamor for more regulation of businesses and landlords yet they don't realize that this eventually makes them pay more for everything as well. Obviously no one is in a business to lose money and once they start losing money the prices go up and when no one can afford to pay these prices anymore business close.
Obviously, the Federal Government is excluded from this model because when they run out of money they borrow more instead of balancing the budget. However, eventually one must pay the piper.
Sad to hear this. I wrote about it back in the day for Time Out New York. I'm sending this comment from the Peoria airport and for the first time in 19 years, I'm seriously thinking about moving back here.
I like Mamas Bar, always meant to go to the cafe, but never made it. Whenever it came up among friends, people were either neutral or negative on it. I cant disagree with the letter though, with all the rising costs, there is very little room for the slightest misstep for a restaurant, at least if you dont have huge financial backing. Ave B is def becoming a ghost town, or at least is changing. As long as Snack Dragon, Sigmunds and Cortadito are there, Im happy.
No! the banana cream pie!
I loved Mama's and will miss it but something about has been off recently...perhaps the impending doom that was lurking.
The EV is dead. Long live the EV.
@ anon 10:53
Thanks for letting me know...
I own a small retail business in the East Village. We've been open two years. Last year, my share of the building's property tax increase was the equivalent of one months' rent. This year, it's nearly three times as much. If it goes any higher next year, there's no way I'm keeping my shop in the neighborhood.
I loved Mama's and ate there often when I lived in NYC. The portions were generous and affordable and delicious. Come open up in Philly instead!
I preferred Mama's more than the new places like Bobwhite that opened. Mama's had big, hungry-man portions. Bobwhite is for the birds.
No issue with Mama's in fact loved it when they also had the sandwich shop across the street. However have a a big issue with Mama's bar which caters to the exact people Jeremiah Clancy says are ruining the neighborhood. I walked by there on a Sunday afternoon and there were a bunch of drunken yunnies singing along to bad pop music and the french doors were wide-open such that you could hare them outside the credit union. The restaurant was a great spot, but the bar was a shit show.
This is sad, but the East Village has been on a steady commercial decline for 10 years now. These days, you need to follow the crowds, and restaurants and bars are popping up in Brooklyn (especially I see it in Park Slope and Prospect Heights and Crown Heights) almost every other day. Just in the last 2 months, 5 new bars have opened in Park Slope, including the largest beer garden in NYC. Williamsburg of course has tons of stuff too, but I see those more coming and going and with a lack of community much like the East Village.
Brooklyn is the center of NYC right now culturally and otherwise so it would make sense to try to capitalize on the markets there. Don't look for a trendy spot, look for a neighborhood spot and your customers will come back again and again. Manhattan has become all about corporate greed and hype.
What a shame.
As someone who lives in the neighborhood and has been trying to start my own small business for over a year, I agree that it's definitely an uphill battle to make it happen in this area.
Between the rents, property taxes, health department regulations and fees, establishing or operating a small business is nearly impossible (especially if your intention is to offer goods or services at affordable prices). Sadly, I think we'll continue to see the decline of mom and pops and the invasion of the chains unless something changes.
Very sad to see another local stand-by disappear. Best of luck to the owner in whatever comes next.
You have no idea what you're talking about. Why don't you open a small business in the area and then talk to me. It should be known that the restaurant business is truly the hardest you will find.
This really made me cry. I'm scared to see what will become of alphabet city...
I am really sorry to see you leave and hope you reconsider opening another Mama's in Brooklyn or wherever. I will travel to get to you. You were so good and I even brought small groups to your tiny little restaurant. Your location in the East village has a lot of history for me as I remember a Jazz club, "Slug's", in the same location in the 60's where some great Jazz musicians had their start. I was a HS student and I used to babysit for the owners. Again I hope you reopen somewhere in the NYC area.
Assume everything is true about the increased rent, taxes, expenses, etc. Nothing about that can be helped if the food starts to SUCK. When Mama's opened in the 90's, the food was fresh and flavorful, and there was plenty of it. Within the past few years, the portions were just as big, but the quality became very hit-or-miss, and many times the food just tasted "off." It also didn't help that delivery became more erratic as years went on, with one staffer even telling me once that my address "didn't exist," even though I had been ordering from there for over a decade by that point. Maybe if they had changed the menu, maybe if they had paid more attention to the food, maybe if they had found a way to improve the difference between cost and price, things may have turned out differently. But once the food goes south, not much else can be done.
I'm part of that younger generation mentioned. I live on Avenue B. I've eaten and loved the atmosphere of Mama's.
And I'm ashamed that my generation has no respect or knowledge of what East Village once truly represented. Nor do they have any interest of learning about or fostering this community.
I know they aren't to blame for this but I also know none of my age group will bat an eye at the local shops passing.
They will continue paying into landlords who overcharge them because they prefer 'luxury' condos. They will continue with an attitude of indifference to the any type of community. Because to them the East Village is just a pretty place they inhabit and party in.
I hope some will grow out of it (because hey, we are young and stupid) and try to learn and be a part of the neighborhood, and I realize some won't. And it's a shame.
I just wish more of my generation had respect for the place and people wherein they live, and an attitude that tried to take into account the overall community beyond their 'bubble'.
I'll miss the mural and the menu art too. RIP Mama's.
Kind of a shame but Mama's had a great run. If a restaurant lasts more than a year or two then they tend to last around 12 - 15 years. That Mama's stayed open as long as it did is an indication that the building's owner was cutting them some slack on the rent as it is. (If memory serves me, the building's owner owns the bar and used to run the restaurant.) The restaurant's business model served Alphabet City very well 10 - 15 years ago when it was a cheap a gritty place. Not so much anymore. The food costs alone must have been killing them considering the portion sizes. I loved the food 10 yrs ago but like everyone else, I moved on to Brooklyn 3 years ago. RIP Mama's. RIP.
so sorry to see them go!!!!
Yelp can suck it, it's used by exactly the people he laments. No one can know how hard it is to run a business like this in NYC, unless they have done it. Thank you for your heartfelt, honest true letter, and best of luck to you.
Subsidies to arenas, not small businesses and this is what happens. Sad, very sad.
to Anonymous JULY 31, 2012 5:34 PM "Don't look for a trendy spot, look for a neighborhood spot and your customers will come back again and again. Manhattan has become all about corporate greed and hype."
you haven't been to Brooklyn in awhile then, that's Brooklyn...greed and hype.
Its not the property owners its the government and taxes. I own a business on Avenue B that started originally on Avenue A in the early 90's. In the late 80's early 90's the city set up 20/25 years tax abatement's to instill much needed growth and gentrification in the EV. This put our neighborhood at a distinct rent advantage to the rest of Manhattan and allowed all the wonderful small businesses to be born and grow there. Well those abatement's are expiring and the building owners are passing on the share of that to the commercial tenants as should be the case. It will most definitely change the commercial viability in the neighborhood. The only way around that is if the government is smart enough or cares enough for some reason to give tax breaks to the area. I can't see that happening if there is a supply of businesses (NYU, banks, corporations such as Starbucks) with a desire to be in the area to do business.
We recently inherited a space in Brooklyn that is experiencing greater growth than we have ever seen in the EV due to the EV being so secluded from the train system. So actually the people who rent in the EV have the luxury of just picking up and moving but the land owners well they are in a precarious position because there is a limit to the commercial viability of market due to the location away from transportation. I love my co-op (non investor)landlords and hope the high taxes do not kill them.
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