With sale of building, the Central Bar signs off after nearly 20 years on 9th Street

The Central Bar, the bi-level sports bar-lounge at 109 E. Ninth St. between Third Avenue and Fourth Avenue, has closed.

Ownership made the announcement back on March 18 via Instagram. (Thanks to MP for the photo!)

Per the notice: "Our landlord has sold the building and the new owners will not be keeping us as tenants."

The note goes on to thanks patrons for nearly 20 years of patronage.

The sale hasn't hit public records just yet.

Some years back, the address was home to Pageant Book & Print Shop, and its storefront served as a location for Neil Simon's "Chapter Two" and Woody Allen's "Hannah and Her Sisters."

And you can now find Pageant Print Shop at 69 E. Fourth St. between Second Avenue and the Bowery.

Dian Kitchen has closed on 9th Street

After nearly three years at 435 E. Ninth St. between Avenue A and First Avenue, Dian Kitchen announced it was closing at the end of service last evening. (H/T VV!) 

The quick-serve restaurant specialized in rice noodles and other small dishes from China's Yunnan province. 

The Instagram message from the owners is below... they say they are moving out of NYC and hope to reopen Dian Kitchen where they land...

 

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Photo from 2018 by Steven

The Wafels & Dinges outpost on Avenue B has closed

The Wafels & Dinges cafe has closed on Avenue B and Second Street. Workers were spotted clearing out the corner space this past week. 

This was the first brick-and-mortar cafe — opening in July 2013 — for the popular food trucks serving Belgian waffles that have been in circulation around the city dating to 2007.

W&D founder Thomas DeGeest, who lived with his family in the neighborhood, confirmed the closure to EVG contributor Stacie Joy. (All photos from Friday by Stacie.)

"We are in the process of moving out. The store is closed and won't reopen," he said. "It's been many years of great memories, of meeting interesting neighbors and wonderful customers. We always considered it a privilege to serve everyone. People came to spend their time with us, they came to enjoy our food and our cafe, and that's something to be grateful for.

"For the East Village, unfortunately, it's gonna be another empty storefront," he continued. "But for many New Yorkers and tourists over the past 14 years, Wafels & Dinges has become part of their New York experience."

Although this outpost has closed, he said his family business is here to stay. "We'll heat up our irons again, we'll bake and we will thrive."

The W&D trucks are still in circulation and they still have their permanent kiosks at Bryant Park and Herald Square. They're also now selling their wares online.  

"When the COVID crisis forced us to close all brick and mortar locations last year, we were able to pivot, thanks to many customer donations, and we shipped over 12,000 waffles out to frontline workers in New York, Baltimore, New Orleans and Chicago," DeGeest said. "That was the launching pad to start our online shop."  

O Ramen Dim Sum M has closed on 9th Street

A for-rent sign now hangs on the storefront at 350 E. Ninth St. just west of First Avenue.

The previous tenant, O Ramen Dim Sum M, never really had a chance. They opened this past July for two weeks then closed when there wasn't any business during the pandemic ... sources on the block said that they reopened in the fall, but their hours were sporadic... open for a day or two, then closed for several days.

And previously: beQu Juice closed here in November 2019 after nearly six years in business. Until 2012, a bakery had been in this storefront for 87 years. 

Thanks to Steven for the photo... and to William Klayer for also noting the closure. 

Mike's Cleaners is closing on Avenue A

Mike's Cleaners is closing up shop on Avenue A between Fourth Street and Fifth Street. (Thank you to Stacie Joy for the photos.)

The note on the gate blames the closure on the "current situation." 

Across the country dry cleaners have been hard hit during the pandemic...  as more people are working from home and not wearing business attire, and fewer people are going to events where they need to dress up. So no need to take things in to a dry cleaners.

According to the National Cleaners Association, one in six dry cleaners have closed or gone bankrupt in the United States during the pandemic.

The numbers seem higher here. By my count, 10 dry cleaners have closed in the East Village since the start of the pandemic... Dion Cleaners on 14th Street, Amy's aka C & C on Seventh Street, LT Baron's on 11th Street, Sun's Laundry on 14th Street, Best Ave. B Dry Cleaners on Avenue B,  AAA Cleaners on Avenue A, Exquisite Cleaners on First Avenue, Sunrise Cleaners on Third Street and Danny Cleaner's on 10th Street (they merged with Lois Cleaners on the southeast corner of 10th Street and Third Avenue).

Back on Thursday, local community groups gathered outside outside Michelle Dry Cleaners & Laundry on Avenue C to call on state legislators to support commercial rent relief for small businesses. 

Meyhane has closed on 2nd Avenue

Meyhane, which served Mediterranean-style tapas, has closed at 166 Second Ave. between 10th Street and 11th Street. (Thanks to Steven for the photo!)

As you can see, brown paper covers the front windows. Google now lists them as permanently closed as well. The outpost in Cliffside Park, N.J., remains open. 

Not sure when Medina's Turkish Kitchen, which opened in August 2019 and was quite good, morphed into Meyhane.

As previously noted, the address has been home to several businesses just in the 14-year lifespan of EVG, starting with a Dunkin' Donuts ... then the pizzeria Pomodora ... then three open-and-shut hookah places — Entrez Bar & Grill, Farfasha and Dinah that looked to have the ambiance of a regional airport lounge.

And we hear a new restaurant is already in the works for the address.

No more desire for this deli, apparently

EVG regular Salim shares this photo from the southeast corner of Avenue B and Fourth Street, where Your Desire For Food quietly closed in recent weeks. 

We hear the deli owners, who run several in the area, just weren't able to make it work here.

Your Desire in Food opened this past June (and we found them to be very welcoming), and offered a variety of fresh-made sandwiches and salads. 

There is ample competition here with more-established delis, including the East Village Finest Deli right across the street ... and Ben's a block to the south... and Sunny & Annie's and their topnotch sandwiches two blocks to the north.

The previous tenant here, East Side Gourmet Deli, closed in April 2019. Their sign remained on the storefront, as Your Desire simply hung a banner over part of it.

The Marshal seizes the Lower East Side Coffee Shop on 14th Street

Ugh. A bad sign at the Lower East Side Coffee Shop on 14th Street just west of Avenue A ... there's a posted notice stating that the restaurant is now in the legal possession of the landlord. (Thank you to @goodnitesteve for the tip and photo.)

And as you can see, plywood now covers the windows and door. 

While the coffee shop is on the new side (2008), it had (if this is permanent) an old-school look and feel — especially with the neon. This photo is from Jan. 23...

However, business had been off during the pandemic... and the delivery and takeout orders (and extremely limited outdoor seating) ... wasn't apparently enough to stay in business.

Pandemic aside, it has been a tough slog for all the businesses on this corner. For nearly three years this side of 14th Street was an active construction zone for L-train repairs with a variety of trucks, drill rigs, pile drivers, compressors and generators. 

Several businesses were forced to shut down due to severely limited access to their storefronts. Outside the now-shuttered Dion and the Coffee Shop, customer access included only 28 inches of sidewalk space — not big enough for a wheelchair in spots.

Big Gay Ice Cream founders say goodbye to their very first shop

Big Gay Ice Cream co-founders Doug Quint (above left) and Bryan Petroff (above right) shared this message with us yesterday about the closure of their Seventh Street shop, as reported yesterday ...

With great sadness but with no regrets, Bryan and I decided that the time came for Big Gay Ice Cream to close our East Village location. 

125 East Seventh Street is where Big Gay Ice Cream became more than just our overblown hobby. Big Gay Ice Cream Truck a grew into a legitimate hit and in 2011 we decided that it was supposed to be what we did with our lives. 

We signed the lease, quit our day jobs, and built ourselves a perfectly imperfect hole-in-the-wall soft serve joint. I would work a late night in the ice cream truck, staying out long enough to be able to afford a prep sink the next day so in a way every Big Gay Ice Cream Truck customer helped build that place.

For a decade the shop hummed along and put tens of thousands of Salty Pimps in the hands of folks from Tierra Del Fuego to Lapland. It made many people, including us, very happy. 

We always knew that if we ever opened a shop it would be in the East Village. It had to be. In its heyday that section of East Seventh was one of the hottest food blocks in the city — even The New York Times singled it out. We wanted to be right there with Caracas, Luke’s Lobster, Porchetta, Butter Lane and Pylos. Damn, that block had energy and we loved it.  

The batteries have gone a bit dim on that street. The empty storefronts (kept vacant by landlords working tax breaks) that plague the city have settled in. It ain’t what it was. 

We decided that even if the shop managed to make it through “the COVID thing” it would never truly recover. We need to be able to jam customers in during the summer to make enough money to get us through the off season. That won’t work anymore. Knowing that the usual fall semester student rush won’t be coming this year we have decided to call it. 

Thank you all for making wonderful memories at our first shop and thank you to the East Village for having us. We’re going to “keep on keeping on” at our other locations and hope to open another East Village or Lower East Side location before too long. 

Goodbye East Seventh. So long and thanks for all the calories.

Photo from 2011

The Big Gay Ice Cream Shop will not be reopening on 7th Street

A lot of people have pointed this out in recent days: The for-rent sign in the front window of the Big Gay Ice Cream Shop on Seventh Street between Avenue A and First Avenue.

Co-founder Doug Quint confirmed the closure, though didn't offer any other immediate comment. [Updated: Read their farewell-to-Seventh-Street message here.]

This outpost had been closed since the PAUSE went into effect last March ... the Big Gay locations in the West Village and UWS did reopen.

The popular shop opened in September 2011 with a memorable array of entertainment, including an all-bassoon band, Bea Arthur lookalikes and Anthony Bourdain dressed as a priest blessing the shop. 

This was the very first location for the business that started with an ice cream truck. Since then, Quint and co-founder Bryan Petroff authored a cookbook on frozen treats and launched a pint-sized product line in grocery stores. 

Photo by Steven

Camellia will not be reopening on 3rd Avenue

Just a little north of our usual coverage area... Camellia, the restaurant that served made-in-house ramen and gelato, will not be reopening at 155 Third Ave. between 15th Street and 16th Street.

Food writer Nick Solares tells us that a for-rent sign has arrived in the front window. The restaurant never reopened after the PAUSE of March 2020.

Camellia debuted in early 2019 in space that was, in part, a Subway (sandwich shop). They temporarily closed several months later for renovations. 

The former Meet Noodles space is for rent on 3rd Avenue; Taste Wine looks closed next door

Meet Noodles has closed at 50 Third Ave. I don't know when this happened. They had been open for takeout and delivery ... as well as some curbside dining... but it all seemed to go dark in recent months. (Thanks to Steven for the photo!) 

There isn't any word of a closure on its website, social media properties ... or even Yelp. The restaurant specializing in Chongqing noodles opened here in May 2019. They also have locations in Brooklyn, Columbus, Ohio, and Nashville, Tenn. 

Anyway, there's now a listing for the space that doesn't offer many details, like rent. 

The west side of Third Avenue between 10th Street and 11th Street is getting grim... with this closure, five of six consecutive storefronts are now empty... including the former Boilery and Blockheads ... Ainsworth on the corner is said to be temporarily closed...

In addition, next door to Meet, it appears that Taste Wine Co. has closed... paper is covering the windows and the store appears to be empty, per Steven ... the shop had just reopened under new ownership in the fall... if this is a permanent closure, then this makes six of seven closed businesses right in a row...

Costume drama: Halloween Adventure is closing next month

As you may have heard, Halloween Adventure is shutting down in the weeks ahead at 808 Broadway/104 Fourth Ave. between 11th Street and 12th Street.

The costume shop has been holding big sales since early December, arousing suspicions of a closure, though nothing had been made official ... Time Out was able to get confirmation from an employee last week...

According to SecretNYC, the store will shut down at the end of February. A worker blamed the closure on a lack of business in recent months during the pandemic.

The company has been around since 1981 with outposts and pop-up shops in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Here's some of the store's EV history via Time Out: 

[Halloween Adventure] first opened a temporary pop-up store in 1991 and continued to open pop-ups in the East Village until 1996, including at spaces that now house Forbidden Planet on East 13th and Broadway and the Fed/Ex Kinkos on Astor Place. 

In 1996, it found its permanent home in what used to be a World Gym at 104 Fourth Ave. and in 2004, it expanded and got a second entrance at 808 Broadway.

Thanks to Steven for the photos!

The Schmackary's outpost on Cooper Square isn't reopening

One of the two retail spaces at 35 Cooper Square (at Sixth Street) is now for rent... marking the official end of the Schmackary's outpost. 

The bakery, sporting 75-plus varieties of cookies plus brownie's, etc., never reopened after the PAUSE in March 2020. Their main store on West 45th Street remains in business as does its online service.

Schmackary's opened here in July 2019... Previously: Pourt, the cafe-work space combo, closed after 11 months in December 2017 here in the retail base of the Marymount Manhattan College dormitory. 

5 Napkin Burger Express gives way to Tamam Falafel on 14th Street

On 14th Street at Third Avenue, 5 Napkin Burger Express has closed. (Thanks to food writer Nick Solares for the above photo!) 

The space isn't going to be vacant long, however. Singage is already up for the new tenant — the plant-based Tamam Falafel, which also has a location on the UES. The sign arrived Wednesday, per EVG reader Eddie...

This quick-serve outpost for the 5 Napkin Burger chainlet opened in the fall of 2019.

Sammy's Roumanian Steakhouse has closed for now on the Lower East Side

Word circulated this weekend that LES staple Sammy's Roumanian Steakhouse had closed for good on Chrystie Street after 47 years of serving up ice-encased vodka, smeared pitchers of schmaltz and enormous platters of meat to the backdrop of Yiddish sing-alongs. 

This afternoon, Sammy's ownership (David Zimmerman) responded to the rumors in an Instagram post. (East Village-based storefront photographers James and Karla Murray initially observed what appeared to be a closure.)  

It is with great sadness that we announce that the rumors are true and we have had to shut the doors to the infamous basement. 

Sammy’s Roumanian is more than just a restaurant. It's a community. A celebration of tradition. An experience difficult to put into words. It's where families come to dine weekly, where partygoers begin their night (if they survive the frozen vodka), and where Simchas are celebrated. It's a place where you can be yourself, make friends, discover what a Shiksa is, and maybe even get called out as one too. Above all, it's a place where everyone feels at home, welcome, and part of a larger family.

However, it sounds as if Sammy's is leaving the door open for a return some day in a new location.

So chins up fellow schmaltzers. All the years of devouring chopped liver with our special schmaltz, schmered on rye bread with a side of pickles and a shot (or glass) of frozen vodka to wash it down will be remembered fondly. We may be closed now, but when all this is over and we feel safe enough to hold hands during the hora, we will be back stronger, louder, and tastier than ever before. We are New York. We will survive this. We will always cherish the memories we shared with all of you.

He confirmed as much in a text message to Gothamist. 

Sammy's had closed when the PAUSE went effect last March, and was never able to reopen. And this is not the kind of food that works for delivery.