On Thursday, a tipster told us that he overheard waitstaff at Veselka Bowery say they were closing after this weekend. However, we never received confirmation from management.
Now, though, the restaurant at Avalon Bowery Place has updated its Facebook account with this message:
Veselka Bowery wants to thank all of our old friends — and the new friends we made along the way — as we close our doors today at 4PM for the last time.
There were great times and great food. Thank you for your unending support and thanks to the East Village community for being the best little town in the country's biggest city.
We're sorry to close, but it's not goodbye if we see you in our original Veselka :: Beceлкa location, where the doors never close. Keep in touch!
The restaurant opened in November 2011.
Previously.
More later...
Ate there a couple of time and really enjoyed the food, but it was out of my price league. Sorry to see them close, but they were trying to market themselves to the newly arriving rich trash.
ReplyDeleteThat particular block of suburban bleakness doesn't seem too healthy for restaurants.
I never quite understood the idea of two Veselkas in the same neighborhood. Why didn't they try a different part of the city? Given the choice between going to the original or sitting in what felt like a mall, I'm sticking to 2nd Ave and 9th St.
ReplyDeleteProbably owes more to the stupid location than Veselka's food.
ReplyDeleteGood Riddance to overpriced grub, even the original Veselka on 9th is so full of shit in regards to food over price; every year their dishes get smaller and smaller and their prices climb.
ReplyDeleteI go next door to Ukrainian Home or up to Little Poland and other locations for tasty borscht without the feeling like my wallet been sodomized.
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I like them but the food is too expensive. What amounts to a cold cut sandwich and fries is $12. C'mon. The Bowery location blended in with with the apartments so if you blinked you missed it. Maybe they were depending on the business from the apartment complexes? Those people want safe. Veselka is too exotic for them.
ReplyDeleteSadsadsad... I loved this place! Here's a Loisaida institution willing to change and take advantage of Bowery's new energy w/ great food, a terrific version of its own classics -- Veselka's "Boweryized"! No, not down+outers, but risking it to take on DBGBs and Pulino's and the hipoisie. Where was the neighborhood support? Are we ceding the Bowery? Long live Veselka's!
ReplyDeleteVeselka just learned what other locals like Sarabeths are going to learn the hard way; if you try to go upscale and forget the people who made you rich enough to expand in the first place, you will lose. Only big national chains and big money chefs can pull this off, the difference is Veselka and now Sarabeths think they can go with a corporate looking generic design, and change the menu and up the prices. Wrong. Agree that the original Vesleka has gone downhill, food is not nearly as good as in the 90s, Neptune the Polish diner on 1st ave. is way better and you can always get a table. Hope other locals like S'mac which recently expanded on east 33rd don't make these same mistakes.
ReplyDeleteim loving the jabs at this joint... WAYYY overpriced. at least they had the same borscht tho.
ReplyDeletetoo bad about veselka bowery? first they took over the coffee stand in the park on 1st street (1-2), then they opened veselka bowery thinking they could cash in on the growing upscale bowery population. the food might have been good but the prices were out of this world.
ReplyDeletethey paid too much attention to the bowery veselka at the expense of the original veselka.
i hope, now that there is only one veselka, they will return to their once great food at reasonable prices, now that they don't have to concentrate on where they can save 5 cents to support their bowery venture.
veselka's was a success because everyone ate there, even after they left the neighborhood.
i actually liked the veselka bowery. of course, its totally different than veselka on 2nd ave but it was open and airy, same great food, never crowded. for what it was, i liked it.
ReplyDeleteMy prediction on S'mac on E 12th St. is coming true, the health department just shut them down:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20130501/east-village/east-village-mac-cheese-joint-smac-closed-by-health-department
Too bad. Over-expansion is usually the beginning of the end for a local place without a lot of good management, and S'Mac has been going downhill for awhile. I went to the Kiosk on Houston St last week, the guy working there was too almost busy texting to take my order, and the worker attitude at the take out on E 12th needs some serious re-adjusting.