2 new plant-based restaurants arrive for takeout and delivery on 1st Street

58 E. First St. between First Avenue and Second Avenue is now home to two plant-based restaurants — VistroBurger and PurpleThai...

The restaurants, offering takeout and delivery, popped up here last week.

Vistro offers several varieties of burgers, including the CHICKpea, the Shroom'n, the Beanoa (black beans and quinoa) and the Sexy SeiTAN. The menu is here. You can find the PurpleThai menu here.

Both establishments are from Ross Glick, the founder of Vegan Warrior Project. 

The new businesses must mean the end of Km1, short for Kilometro Uno, the Caribbean restaurant that debuted late in the summer of 2020 and only lasted a few months before going dark.

This address has seen several quality restaurants come and go in recent years. Esperanto Fonda lasted nine months, closing in May 2017. Before that, this was home to BARA for two years and Prima for three years. The Elephant, a Thai restaurant, was previously here for 17 years.

Openings: Km1 brings Caribbean cuisine to 1st Street

Km1, short for Kilometro Uno, recently debuted on First Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue... focusing on "food from the Greater Antilles islands, with comforting dishes like mofongo, yucca fries, and shrimp served out of a half-pineapple on deck," per Eater.

And The Infatuation recently had a preview:

In addition to burgers, ceviche, and honey-glazed jerk wings, the menu has a bunch of Dominican dishes like a vegan pastelon layered with mushrooms and coconut sauce, and some extremely crispy mofongo with skirt steak and a light tomato broth.

And no liquor license at the moment...



Km1 is at 58 E. First St. Open daily 5-11 p.m. Phone: (646) 669-7547.

This address has seen several quality restaurants come and go in recent years. Esperanto Fonda lasted nine months here, closing in May 2017. Before that, this was home to BARA for two years and Prima for three years. The Elephant, a Thai restaurant, was previously here for 17 years.

56 E. 1st St. is for sale

The three-unit, five-story property at 56 E. First St. between First Avenue and Second Avenue has arrived on the sales market.

Here's part of the listing via Leslie J. Garfield:

This 5-story, approximately 6,090 sq. ft. building contains a commercial space on the ground level (with spacious cellar) that could be converted to residential, a duplex apartment with outdoor space and a sprawling triplex with 20' ceilings, terrace, and roof deck. There is additional FAR that could be realized by building up and/or utilizing some of the unused internal cubic feet. In its current configuration, the property provides an ideal live-plus-income or investment opportunity. It could also be converted to a grand single-family home or used for institutions.

Asking price: $13.250 million.

According to Jennifer Gould Keil, who first reported on this at the Post, the owner is Eric Anderson, a co-founder of Prune right next door.

This story from the archives at the Times has more on the building, constructed in 2004, and Anderson.

The ground floor here was the home of the Lower Eastside Girls Club until their move to Avenue D. The space is currently the City Lore Gallery.