Saturday, November 7, 2015

ConEd safety alert at the shuttered Organic Avenue on 3rd Avenue

An EVG reader notes the arrival of a ConEd notice — marked "safety alert" — on the former Organic Avenue storefront on Third Avenue at East Ninth Street... the flyer notes that the gas service is still active here, "but we do not have an account holder on file."

The flyer lists some numbers to call for the storeowner to set up an account. The entire OA chainlet shut down for good after business on Oct. 15.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Gas tampering is rampant in this neighborhood. Every old building is a potential explosion in the making.

Giovanni said...

The NY Times article that Grieve linked to reveals why so any of these chains fail: Greed. Fad-based foodie concepts run by inexperienced management that just wants to quickly build a brand and get paid before it all collapses. This chain generated $20 million in sales and still couldn't make a profit, losing hundreds of thousands per month. They picked overpriced locations, threw out too much food, and probably overpaid top management. The founders cashed out, are working on new brands to sell off, and the new investors are scratching itheir asses trying to figure out what went wrong.

Meanwhile we have 10 more empty stores, bouncing checks and countless unpaid vendors and employees who are owed a lot of money. But as one of these investors says, that's just how bankruptcy works. Lets start supporting local busiensses and not these concept pop up chains that leave town in the middle of the night and don't even bother to pay thier bills, while the founders walk away with millions. This priceless quote about basing a business on Gwyneth Paltrow's tastes sums it all up, via the NY Times:

"At the time, Organic Avenue was generating about $20 million in revenue and scant, if any, profit, according to former investors. Regardless of the brand hype, “the good old days never existed,” a former investor said.

Weld North’s plan was to add more food to the menu and to increase the scale of the business — to do for green juice what Starbucks did for cappuccinos — but the company struggled with high real-estate costs and wasted inventory. Raw organic produce is highly perishable, and Organic Avenue’s garbage cans were known among Dumpster divers to be filled with juice and food that was still edible past the sell-by dates.

The loyalty of devotees like Ms. Schamens and Ms. Kerin notwithstanding, there is an admitted emperor’s new clothes quality to paying $25 for a lunch of vegetable shavings and a smoothie made of Swiss chard, cashew milk and Himalayan salt.

“You can’t get people to crave this food,” the former investor said. “You can’t build a long-term business off what Gwyneth Paltrow likes.”

Anonymous said...

Why don't the ConJob idiots shut off the gas there?

Edmund Dunn said...

“You can’t get people to crave this food,” the former investor said. “You can’t build a long-term business off what Gwyneth Paltrow likes.”

BTW, Gwyneth Paltrow, like Jennifer Lopez and Jessica Alba, is a smoker. So healthy. I got another name for them. Grifters.

BagelGuy said...

@Giovani Very well said. I'd add that if you really want your place to last you go in understanding it's your life. 7 days a week. No holidays. You sweat the small stuff. You make it your business to be in your shop. It's not about a quick buck. It's a marathon. It's a grind. You can fancy it up with all the colorful signs and PR article hype you like. At the end of the day it comes down to actual hard work and worrying, A LOT, about the things you listed in your first paragraph ..... and then some! And you do that day after day after day after day. Maybe, if you're lucky, you'll last until your lease is up.

Giovanni said...

@BagelGuy. This whole Organc Avenue debacle makes me wonder if Black Seed Bagels is the next one to go, with theiir rapid expansion into expensive locations and focus on PR. Their bags tatse burtn to me, and their sandwijhhes are very pricey. Once the buzz wears off these businesses need to depend on regular customers, and I doubt they will pay $12-$15 for a small hard bagel sandwich.

nygrump said...

November 7, 2015 at 5:24 PM, I am in absolute agreement Jessica Alba is a smoker, but Paltrow repulses me