Thursday, June 29, 2023

Is 334 Bowery now officially a doomed location for restaurants?

Xeo Cantina has been dark for the past month+ at 334 Bowery between Great Jones and Bond.

There's nothing about a closure on the restaurant's website or social media... they are no long on Resy. No one responded to our queries about their status.

Xeo, described as serving "Vietnamese food with Tequila," opened last June
 
It was the latest spot to try the space... Gia Trattoria closed after just four months in December 2021. Oddly enough, there was already a restaurant called Gia Trattoria from different operators at this address several years earlier. 

To recap: Between November 2014 and June 2015, when the storefront was divided into two spaces, we had Forcella, Espoleta, Gia Trattoria, Slice of Naples, SRO and Bowery Pizza come and go over six months. 

This space was later Gino Sorbillo, the first U.S. pizzeria from "the Neapolitan celebrity super-chef" of the same name. The "temporarily closed for renovation" sign arrived here in early January 2021 after a November 2017 opening — so not a bad run considering everyone else's tenure.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I waited tables down the street on Bowery at a French bistro next to the New Museum. This was around 2016. Reservations and walk ins were inconsistent no matter what day it was, which forced me to resign without notice as I could't generate a income. And less than a year later, they closed. I had a friend who worked at the location highlighted under new ownership where it was only busy on weekends. The remaining opening days were pitiful. Some nights not one customer walked through the door. It is a transient area and not really a destination for dining like other neighborhoods. I didn't even feel safe on certain nights walking home. I wish others who launched businesses here did their homework and talked to locals before signing on to the dotted line only to lose money in the end.

Anonymous said...

Twenty-three years ago Tony Bourdain wrote in Kitchen Confidential about "restaurant death spots," seemingly promising locations in which restaurant after restaurant fails. Not much has changed.

Peter