Former Pourt space for lease on Cooper Square

Pourt, the cafe-work space at 35 Cooper Square, closed at the end of November after 11 months in business.

The for lease sign is now up in the window here in the base of the Marymount Manhattan College dormitory at Sixth Street. ... though the listing isn't online just yet at the RKF website.

The eventual new tenant will have a dessert shop as a neighbor. Meet Fresh, a Taiwan-based chain, will be opening soon next door.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Pourt has closed on Cooper Square

Meet Fresh bringing teas and taro balls to Cooper Square

Pourt has closed on Cooper Square

Pourt, the cafe-work space combo at 35 Cooper Square, shut down after service on Friday.

There's a message on the bottom of the Pourt website noting that they "are unfortunately no longer operating. Thank you to all of our customers."



It seemed like a good idea on paper: a mixture of coffeehouse and workspace. People could rent a desk with speedy fiber optics by the hour ($7) and order bottomless coffee ($2.99). There was also access to printers, phone chargers, Skype facilities, etc., as well as a larger conference room for small groups.

The New York Business Journal wrote about the space back in March:

Pourt is striving to create a new hybrid, a mixture of coffeehouse and workspace, emphasizing short-term stays. Whether there are enough freelancers and small businesses that can pay those fees is yet to be determined.

It‘s located on Cooper Square, strategically situated near Cooper Union, NYU, Manhattan Marymount College dorms and the Standard Hotel in the bustling East Village. The combined space measures 2,000 square feet.

Founders Matt Tervooren, 28, and 27-year-old Mike Kruszewski, lived in the East Village (Tervooren recently moved to Williamsburg) and met as economics majors at the University of Michigan. When they freelanced, they were “consistently frustrated by the lack of good Wifi, lack of available seating, or having the barista frowning at you if you don’t order more food,” Tervooren noted.

Pourt, he said, “combines the two concepts, a coffee shop with a comfortable work space.” And what differentiates Pourt from other co-working spaces such as WeWork and Regus is customers “don’t have to make long-term commitments. If you’re looking for a permanent office, we’re not right,” he admitted.

So what happened? One local who frequented the space offered this analysis:

Their rent was very high and they had a lot of square footage. They took so much space because they originally thought they could have space in the back where people would pay to work during the day. Their rent required that the work space generate substantial revenue. But nobody wanted to pay $10+/hour to work in the back when there are so many other options nearby. So they tried a bunch of other business models over the past year, trying to figure out how to generate enough revenue to pay crazy East Village rents on a large space that a coffee shop model alone couldn’t support. They were nice guys and worked hard ... it’s a shame.

Pourt opened back in January in the base of the Marymount Manhattan College dormitory here at Sixth Street.

The owners were unsuccessful in their bid for a full liquor license in July.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Pourt softly opens on Cooper Square

Pourt signage arrives at Cooper Square dorm retail space

Pourt softly opens on Cooper Square

Pourt, a cafe and workspace, opened this past Friday at 35 Cooper Square at Sixth Street (in one of the retail spaces in the base of the Marymount Manhattan College dormitory).


[Photo Friday by @unitof]

For now, in this soft-open mode, only the cafe portion of the operation is up and running. They are serving Intelligentsia coffee and tea as well as offerings from Tompkins Square Bagels and Liquiteria, among others. (You can find the other vendors here.) They were also approved for a beer-wine license last summer.

There will also be a workspace for freelancers, students... and anyone else. The space has fiber-optic Internet connection and access to color printers. According to the Pourt website, a desk space (with a comfortable-looking chair) is $7 an hour, and an extra $2.99 gets you unlimited coffee, espresso or tea drinks. There's also a five-seat conference room available for rental. You can find more details here.

Pourt's hours are 7 a.m. to midnight.

Pourt signage arrives at Cooper Square dorm retail space

Back in August, we noted that one of the retail spaces in the base of the Marymount Manhattan College dormitory on Cooper Square was becoming a "shared office space and café concept" called BRUD (or Brud, depending on the source).

In June, CB3 OK'd a beer-wine license for BRUD. And the retail listing for the adjacent space mentions BRUD as a neighbor.

Anyway, we mention all this because new signage up at the space at Sixth Street shows a business called Pourt (or maybe pourt)...



Looks like a cafe — the U being a coffee cup and all. And Pourt/pourt is more cafe-sounding than BRUD/brud, which maybe rhymes with C.H.U.D., a pretty good bad movie to watch this time of year.

Anyway! The CB3 application fshowed daily hours of 7 a.m. to midnight for BRUD/brud/CHUD... with menu items including breakfast wraps, deli sandwiches and salads... as well as tea and coffee.