From the tipline: The East Village outpost of Lions & Tigers & Squares has apparently closed. Workers were spotted cleaning out the space yesterday, including scraping the restaurant's name off the front windows. The phone to the restaurant here on Second Avenue at 10th Street is not in service.
The Detroit-style pizzeria from the Artichoke team debuted in this high-profile corner space back in October.
The first Lions & Tigers & Squares remains open on 23rd Street in Chelsea.
17 comments:
First Nolita and now this place, the pandemic really hurt a lot of businesses. Odessa closed, the neighborhood is going to look like a bunch of closed stores.
This place was predictably doomed before opening and covid arrived . The West Street-like car wash sign was the straw which broke the camel's back.
Hahaha ! had never thought the sign as a car wash sign -
but yes ! It does !
Suppose it was there in my subconscious thought,
but couldn't place it.
I liked the sign.
Never tried the pizza, though, as the one time I tried Artichoke, it was the absolute worst. Still not happy to see any businesses close - I'm afraid we're in for a lot worse.
This place was usually pretty empty whenever I visited, so I'm surprised it lasted this long. Sorry to hear it for the staff.
bring back nicoletta, loved that spot!
This was beyond predictable, although the pandemic probably accelerated their closure. I went once, the week they opened, and the greasy/heavy thick crust combined with the very loud sound system, randomly placed tables and highly disorganized ordering made it the first and last time I went there. Nicoletta lasted much longer but was doomed when it started catering to the Sunday Football boozy brunch crowd; in the end it was basically combination of all a Pizzeria Uno sports bar with the weekend “bring the kids” chaos of a Chuck-e-Cheese. Cafe Centosette was the last civilized place in this spot and I still miss it. And what the heck is Detroit Style pizza doing in the capital of NY Style Neapolitan pizza? Maybe they should have just opened a car wash instead.
Landlords better start lowering their commercial rents if they want to make any money. Restaurants gone and not coming back. Mostly spaces are too small for any national brand of any type. They should get the city to let them rezone so that ground floor spaces can be converted to residential units.
The pizza was tasty and the people were nice. Opening a restaurant is a crap shoot in the best of times never mind making it through this virus.
I think this is only the first "wave" of what will turn out to be an enormous number of restaurant closures. There's no way most of them will make it in a Covid environment.
The neon gold sign was tacky AF and the food just wasn't that good. Sorry.
Good local pizza
makes me sad that this closed
We walked in maybe the week they opened. It was a bit disorganized but they were super friendly and the pizza was fine. I hadn't thought of the sign as a West Street - like car wash but now that it's come up I suppose it did which now is funny.
I'm from Michigan, near Detroit.
I did not move to NYC to experience anything from... Detroit.
Their pizza was pretty awesome, a nice addition to the verity of different styles of pizzas in the neighborhood. A whole tray for $11 was a good value too.
If their pizza was so good why didn’t they have enough customers? They were so focused on the image of their brand that they forgot to deliver on the product and customer experience. The same thing goes for Nicoletta, the pizza just wasn’t good enough, otherwise they’d still be in business. Even getting a full liquor license didn’t help them stay in business. Meanwhile tons of other nearby pizzerias are doing just fine. Even the dollar pizza places with an inferior product are doing fine because they deliver a great value. The regular slice places are doing fine because that’s what most people want, a NY slice and a soda. The whole pie pizzerias are doing fine because they serve high quality specialty pizzas. Plus that bright red storefront was as garish as a Las Vegas strip club but not nearly as inviting. This place was doomed to failure from day one, the pandemic just made that day come faster.
This was a great deal when it opened up, $5 for a plain pan-sized pie. $11 and up, not so much. I wouldn't mind paying so damn much for restaurants in this city, and we wouldn't need to, if most of the money didn't end up going to landlord scum (and the inevitable domino effect that high rents has on taxes, wages, literally everything).
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