East Village Cheese remains closed

Another weekend went by without the East Village Cheese Shop being open for business at 80 Seventh St. between First Avenue and Second Avenue. The storefront has been shuttered since Dec. 7.

Several readers have now reported (via the building's super) that the power is off inside the shop. As one reader noted, "It's going to get gross in there soon." (If not already.)

This temporary (for now) closure has been a popular topic in EVG reader emails. Several people have been looking for cheese alternatives. One popular choice is Barnyard Cheese on Avenue B between 10th Street and 11th Street...


[Image via Yelp]

Other East Village possibilities via readers include the Westside Market on Third Avenue at 12th Street ...





... and Union Market on Houston at Avenue A...



Previously

East Village residents apparently really like having macaroni and cheese delivered

[EVG file photo]

Delivery.com has named S'MAC, the mac-and-cheese empire on East 12th Street, the city's busiest delivery service in the city. (This only takes in account deliveries made via Delivery.com from 2011; S'MAC took in more orders than any other restaurant that delivers, the Post reported.)

Co-owner Sarita Ekya told the Post that they make upwards of 50 deliveries an hour on Saturdays.

And as the Post points out, S'MAC (short for Sarita's Macaroni & Cheese) "the restaurant's name is a play on words that harks back to the bad old days when junkies lined up on East Village streets looking for a different kind of fix."

"East Villagers get it," said Ekya, a Nova Scotia native. "Other people will think it's just an abbreviated form of the whole name."

Now that the 'underground' grilled cheese guy has retired

The news came down yesterday that the "underground" grilled cheese guy had retired... heading off to the wilds of Midtown at an "American restaurant." (I still don't believe that this guy actually existed...)

In any event, this is all terribly subjective of course, but I'd still take a grilled cheese on Challah from Odessa any day...

Blue cheese?

The "underground," secret grilled-cheese delivery guy has retired:

Ronnie," the out-of-work Wall Street banker who last summer started grilling the sandwiches in his East Village apartment and selling them on street corners, parlayed the health-code-violating gig into a real restaurant job.
"It was nice being an outlaw for a while," the secretive cheeseslinger told The Post. "But starting Monday, I will be the manager of a high-end American restaurant in Midtown."

Outlaw? Maybe if he had been delivering another kind of cheese...

Say cheese

From our friends over at East Village Feed regarding the LES secret grilled-cheese delivery guy:

There has been a lot of recent press about 'underground' text-to-buy grilled cheese upstart ... With this much national press, is this really still 'underground'?