XyZ Pintxos y Botanas closes for now on 7th Street

The small cafe serving a variety of tapas has closed for the time being at 102 E. Seventh St. between Avenue A and First Avenue.

Per the XyZ Facebook page: "To all our friends, XyZ will be CLOSED until further notice. Thank you so much for your patronage and happy holidays!"

The interior looks in disarray at the moment. (The XyZ listing at OpenTable notes they are permanently closed.)



In any event, the food and wine here had received high marks upon opening in the early fall of 2015. Here's a post from Gothamist from October 2015:

While the food is outstanding at XyZ, cooked by Basque native chef Javier Ortega — who previously owned the TriBeca restaurant Pintxos and ran the kitchen at the natural wine bar The Ten Bells — the wine selection is truly unique and adventurous.

From Wine&Spirits:

Chef Javier Ortega and his daughter, Alaia, serve up a menu that would be at home in San Sebastian, filled with pintxos and botanas, little bites like salt cod croquetas or salty-sweet pa amb tomaca, tomato-rubbed toasts.

This has been a competitive block for cafes/wine bars. Virgola and Shervins Cafe have both closed this year.

The previous tenant here, Tink's Cafe, closed in June 2015.

XYZ puts up its letters on East 7th Street

The signage has arrived for the new cafe opening at 102 E. Seventh St. between Avenue A and First Avenue.

XYZ will be serving "Spanish-influenced food," according to documents (PDF!) filed at the CB3 website for this month's SLA committee meeting. (This item for a new beer-wine license was not heard at the meeting.)

XYZ will be serving food daily from 7 a.m. to midnight. The proprietors previously ran Pintxos over on Greenwich Street. New York magazine gave that cafe high marks:

One of Europe's oldest cuisines, Basque, has a toehold on the west side. Though its roots lie in the Pyrenees, here it's surrounded by high rises in the form of nearby condominium building sites. But barring the occasional construction noise, this restaurant manages to feel unruffled and intimate. A husband-and-wife team serves not only in the namesake pintxos, the Basque equivalent of tapas, but also full-sized entrées. Simple dishes deploy characteristic Basque ingredients — seafood, peppers, pork—to great effect.

The previous tenant here, Tink's Cafe, closed in early June.