Showing posts with label Mama's Food Shop. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mama's Food Shop. Show all posts

Monday, October 7, 2013

Root & Bone announces itself on E. 3rd St.



As reported last week, "Top Chef" alum Jeff McInnis and current "Top Chef" contestant Janine Boothwas are joining forces to open a restaurant called Root & Bone at the former Mama's Food Shop and Heart N' Soul on East Third Street and Avenue B... the exterior is being prepped for the new venture, which "will celebrate Southern foodways," as Food & Wine put it.



... and the mural-in-progress is via @ArtByJW ...



Previously on EV Grieve:
[Updated] Note outside Heart N' Soul explains that the chef had a 'nervous breakdown'

Mama's Food Shop closes after 15 years; 'the community nature of the neighborhood has all but vanished'

Rumors: 'Top Chef' alum Jeff McInnis will help revamp former Mama's Food Shop space

Thursday, October 3, 2013

More details on Root & Bone, opening at the former Mama's Food Shop on E. 3rd St.


[April 2013]

As we first reported on Tuesday, "Top Chef" alum Jeff McInnis was coming to open a restaurant called Root & Bone at the former Mama's Food Shop and Heart N' Soul on East Third Street and Avenue B.

Food & Wine had more details on all this yesterday. New "Top Chef" contestant Janine Booth is joining McInnis for this venture, slated to open in January.

Per F&W:

[T]he new spot will celebrate Southern foodways through dishes like caramelized brisket meat loaf with smoky plantain crème, sunchoke and house-made ricotta “tater tots” and Carolina Gold rice risotto with butter beans and pickled egg yolk.

Let's hope that they fare better than "Top Chef" alum Nikki Cascone, who opened and closed Octavia's Porch within six months right around the corner on Avenue B.

Previously on EV Grieve:
[Updated] Note outside Heart N' Soul explains that the chef had a 'nervous breakdown'

Mama's Food Shop closes after 15 years; 'the community nature of the neighborhood has all but vanished'

Rumors: 'Top Chef' alum Jeff McInnis will help revamp former Mama's Food Shop space

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Rumors: 'Top Chef' alum Jeff McInnis will help revamp former Mama's Food Shop space



Over on East Third Street at Avenue B, Heart 'N Soul came and went in just a month or so this past spring after taking over for the 15-year-old Mama's Food Shop. (Read all about that here.)

Now, a tipster tells us that "Top Chef" alum Jeff McInnis has bought into the space ... and that he and building owner (and Mama's Bar owner) Richard Freedman are in the process of revamping the restaurant and designing the new menu. The restaurant will apparently be called Root & Bone.

During the summer, McInnis reportedly parted ways with the successful Yardbird Southern Table & Bar in Miami ... He told the Miami New Times that he'd "take advantage of this down time and do some staging in a few restaurants around the country."

Upon closing in July 2012, Jeremiah Clancy, owner of Mama's Food Shop, sent a doozy of a farewell letter to various media outlets ... noting, among other things:

Avenue B is a ghost town commercially, the community nature of the neighborhood has all but vanished, and it is over-run every weekend by a generation that has no vested interest in the East Village community except to visit on the weekends.

Previously on EV Grieve:
[Updated] Note outside Heart N' Soul explains that the chef had a 'nervous breakdown'

Mama's Food Shop closes after 15 years; 'the community nature of the neighborhood has all but vanished'

Monday, March 4, 2013

Heart n' Soul opening this week at the site of the former Mama's Food Shop

Several readers pointed us to the revamped space that previously belonged to Mama's Food Shop on East Third Street at Avenue B... (Mama's closed last July after 15 years.)


[Photo by @ThePeterHa]


[Photo by Dave on 7th]

Heart 'n Soul, which opens this week, will feature the "Coastal Southern cuisine" of chef Dave Conn, who spend a good part of his life in the South. Read more about him and his influences at the Heart 'n Soul website.

And here's their menu...



Heart 'N Soul is on this month's CB3/SLA committee docket for a beer-wine license. The landlord of the building also owns the adjacent Mama's Bar.

Thursday, December 20, 2012

A gift idea for the Mama's Food Shop lover in your life

And now a more serious gift idea... Yesterday we heard from Jeremiah Clancy, the former owner of Mama's Food Shop, which closed after 15 years in July...


We are selling a Mama's commemorative tee for any one that misses the old Shop on East 3rd Street. They are $35 and can be ordered by contacting the Mama's email through Jan. 1. The shirts are unisex and are light gray – they come in XS, S, M, L, XL, XXL.

His friend Alexia Stamatiou designed the shirts.

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Mama's Food Shop closes after 15 years; 'the community nature of the neighborhood has all but vanished'

[Via the Mama's website]

Yesterday afternoon, Jeremiah Clancy, owner of Mama's Food Shop on East Third Street and Avenue B the last six years, sent around the following letter to various media outlets and patrons and others...

We'll run his letter in its entirety ... he pretty much nails the problems that small businesses face... and what the East Village has become...

It is with a heavy heart that I have to announce the closing of Mama’s Food Shop in the East Village, NYC as of last evening. After fifteen years in business (six being under my management) it is finally time to say goodbye. We have had many wonderful years and are forever grateful to all of you for eating with us and making our little place feel so special.

Due to increasing rents and property taxes, and the constant expenses that arise when maintaining an older building, it has become no longer possible to keep our doors open. I have no distain for the landlords in the East Village, for they are put in a precarious position of having an overhead that they too cannot afford.

Sadly, it is the small businesses that suffer from the escalation of the above market commercial rents and property taxes. I now join the ranks of Kate’s Joint, Zaitzeff, Life Café, and Lakeside Lounge; all business that have folded in a neighborhood going through a period of flux.

I look forward to seeing what the East Village becomes (Avenues A-C especially), for at this moment it is a neighborhood that is in the midst of change. Avenue B is a ghost town commercially, the community nature of the neighborhood has all but vanished, and it is over-run every weekend by a generation that has no vested interest in the East Village community except to visit on the weekends.

By no means is this an indictment to the new, younger generation, it is more of an admission that much of the steady business for bars and restaurants has moved to Brooklyn and the high residential rents have stripped the neighborhood of the artistic/cultured feel it used to be known for. Mama’s Food Shop has weathered these changes, including surviving the recession, but as these changes started affecting our business, I realized it was the end of an era.

I feel for those who are opening small businesses in New York City in this day and age. We live in a city where the Health Department has far too much power, the cost of the permits, inspections, and maintenance are so high it is impossible for a Mom & Pop operation to keep up with. I know the city needs to make income, yet I am afraid the ways in which they are doing this is going to cost all of our neighborhoods the character that we look for in this city. I am not against banks or chain restaurants going into neighborhoods, just nervous that this is all that will be left once the small businesses cease to exist.

I am a restaurateur and artist who has lived in and loved New York City for almost twenty years. Luckily, the city and its neighborhoods will always be going through change and I am excited for what is to come both in the East Village and beyond. I will move on, get a full time job, and continue to support the underdog small businesses in and around the city. I simply can’t run one anymore — it’s just too damn hard.

We'll be curious to see what happens to the space... we've always heard those rumors that a developer would by this corner space and put in a new apartment building...

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

"Bad pussies" coverup outside Mama's

Several people asked yesterday what was going on outside Mama's on Third Street at Avenue B. The "Bad Pussies" mural that once paid homage to Bea Arthur!

Thanks to intrepid EV Grieve reader Empire for providing some photos of what I was just talking about...

Well!




According to the DOB: minor interior renovation and new plumbing fixtures.



Hope the bad pussies aren't harmed during all this...