A coffee shop closes, and the owner offers an honest reason why

Klatch, an artsy little coffee shop at 9 Maiden Lane just east of Broadway, is now closed....and the owner, Pam Chmiel, a former film editor, is open about what happened...

Paint it black: Sympathy for the Kettle closes

The Sympathy for the Kettle tea salon at 109 St. Mark's Place, which, I admit, never visited, is now boarded up...and their phone has been disconnected. Another merchant on the street told me the shop closed last week.



A Yelp commenter said the owner was planning on opening another store in a new location.

Reverend Billy investigates how the downturn is having an impact on local businesses ("Stay out of the national chains!")

Thanks to the tipster who passed along this link...

Mayoral candidate Reverend Billy talks with business owners on East Ninth Street on how they're coping with the recession. This was filmed as part of the Uncommon Economic Indicator project with the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC.

LES survey: "Small businesses are constantly facing the possibility of rent increases or eviction"

This week's issue of The Villager reports on the results of the Good Old Lower East Side survey titled, “No Go for Local Business: The Decline of the Lower East Side’s Small Business Identity.”

It's about as grim as you'd expect:

The survey found that small businesses are constantly facing the possibility of rent increases or eviction. Almost half of small business owners reported that their overhead costs were rising. Nearly one-third identified rising commercial property rents as their “greatest challenge,” and three-fourths said that their profits are not growing at a sustainable rate compared to the substantial increase in the cost of doing business on the Lower East Side.

Ninety-five percent of small business owners surveyed rent their store space, and nearly half of them hold leases of five years or less.

Redevelopment and gentrification of the Lower East Side were cited by 46 percent of business owners as directly affecting their businesses.

Meanwhile, more stores are closing in the EV

In recent days I started taking photos of all the stores in the EV that had sale signs in the window. It just seemed as if every store was offering huge savings. Given the number of advertised reductions, it occurred to me that it would be easier to take photos of shops that weren't having sales. There weren't many.

Meanwhile, the carnage continues. The Tibetan specialty shop Lhasa Boutique on Avenue B near Fourth Street is going.



This makes 22 empty storefronts now on Avenue B. (There were 23, but Coyi Cafe opened a few weeks back.)

Meanwhile, on Ninth Street between Second Avenue and First Avenue...

Recession causing retail landlords to be sort of nice and humane

To the Times!

Back in the mid-1990s, when a stretch of Ludlow Street in Manhattan was dominated by boarded-up buildings and wholesale fruit and nut vendors, Terri Gillis’s boutique, TG-170, was one of the magnets that drew intrepid shoppers to the Lower East Side.

That area is now one of the city’s liveliest late-night strips, which made it particularly painful for Ms. Gillis to receive an eviction notice last month because she owed $13,556.26 in back real estate taxes. But in a sudden change of heart, her landlord recently offered to let Ms. Gillis stay for two more years, and even proposed paying part of her future real estate taxes — which retail tenants normally pay.

In this troubled economy, the building manager, Arwen Properties, decided it would rather hold onto a good tenant.

“We’re working with her and trying to compromise,” the lawyer for Arwen Properties, Joel Bernstein, said. “The landlord has got an incentive, naturally, to keep cash flowing.”

Many landlords he advises are coming to the same conclusion, Mr. Bernstein said. Just a year ago, the owners of New York’s most coveted retail and restaurant spaces held almost unassailable power to dictate the terms of their leases. But the recession is changing that equation, as rapidly rising vacancy rates and bankruptcies are making it hard to find new tenants.

Ugh: Etherea Records is closing

Karate Boogaloo brings us the awful news this afternoon at Stupefaction: After 13 years, Etherea Records is closing shop on Avenue A next month. Expect nice savings on everything there until then.

As KB notes: "I'm sad, as this is yet another record store biting the dust. One less place to drop by. One less place to discuss music face to face with actual other human beings."

Meanwhile, could someone please hit me over the head really hard with a shovel? Thank you.

The Chocolate Bar heads back to the West Village...which means the House of Cards & Curiosities is closing

The Observer follows up on my post that The Chocolate Bar shut down its East Seventh Street location rather suddenly last week. They spoke with owner Alison Nelson.

“More of our customers came to the Bendel’s location for Christmas than went to the East Village,” she said. “And I think a lot of it is because it’s freezing cold outside and nobody wants to walk however many blocks from the trains or take two buses where it’s easier to hop off the F at Sixth Avenue and — boom! — you’re right inside Henri Bendel.” [EV Grieve editor's note: Oh, the temptation to make a comment about this...]
Yet, her bittersweet saga also took a rather tasty twist.
“When we last saw each other in April, I was freaking out because I couldn’t find rent in the West Village for anything that was affordable,” said Ms. Nelson, who reluctantly shuttered her original Chocolate Bar location at 48 Eighth Avenue last spring after finding larger, less expensive digs across town. “And the weirdest thing happened. …”
Cue international economic crisis!
Eight months after abandoning her beloved but overpriced West Village, Ms. Nelson is now returning to the very same street—“never mind the same neighborhood!” she said. “Literally, diagonally across the street from where it all started and personally where I feel Chocolate Bar belongs … The West Village, for me, is home.”
Ms. Nelson has signed a new lease at 23 Eighth Avenue, taking over the current House of Cards & Curiosities, whose longtime operator is planning to retire.

Oh, so I guess this mans that nice little mom-and-pop shop House of Cards & Curiosities is closing.



[Image via Yelp]

More love in the media for Love Saves the Day

[Photo by Vivi via Picasa.]

Since Jeremiah broke the story Dec. 2 of Love Saves the Day's apparent demise, there has been no shortage of affection for kitsch central at Seventh Street and Second Avenue:

From Lily Koppel's feature in the Times yesterday:

It opened 42 years ago, in a time known by some as the Age of Aquarius, in a Manhattan neighborhood that was a hippie haven. It endured as a psychedelic oasis even as the hippies disappeared and the neighborhood, the East Village, was transformed into a pricier and less scruffy place by the real estate boom that washed across many parts of New York City.

Meanwhile, in The Villager this week, Dottie Wilson has an essay on the store:

LSD, located on the same block of Second Ave. as Gem Spa, B&H Dairy, The Orpheum, Stage Deli and Toy Tokyo, now has a new sign on its door, and it isn’t amusing. It’s an ugly announcement about the departure of yet another special facet of the East Village.

And!

But how ironic and horrible that this unique “real estate” will most likely end up symbolizing a really bad acid trip when a Duane Reade or the equivalent no doubt occupies the space.

Noted

From the Times today:

Martha Stewart was among the many who were saddened a year and half ago by the closing of Kurowycky, the Ukrainian butcher in the East Village, and the loss of its legendary hams. Ms. Stewart, whose heritage is Polish, has decided to try to recapture the Old World style.

Her bone-in applewood-smoked holiday ham is made by Kirkland Signature and sold, either half or whole, at Costco stores.

It has a fine texture and a haunting, smoky taste, though it would be better with a wider rim of creamy fat, a detail that might not bother most people. It is fully cooked, ready to slice, and can also be heated with a glaze.

Now Martha can go to the old Kurowycky spot on First Avenue and get a DVD or CD.

The former Five Rose's is for rent; memories remain

The "store for rent" sign is up at Five Rose's, the beloved pizza shop on First Avenue between 10th Street and 11th Street that closed Nov. 29.



Meanwhile, in the right front window...Let's see how much longer the landlord will allow the memories to last...I took these photos late Sunday afternoon...[Update: See the comments...Jeremiah reports that the thank-you sign and photos are gone...while another commenter correctly points out that the landlord is the former owner of the business.]









For further reading:
Five Rose's Pizza: Vanishing (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

Five Roses’ Krystyna Says “I’ll Be Back” (Hunter-Gatherer)

Gramstand falls

Gramstand, the cutesy tea and sandwich place on Avenue A between 13th Street and 14th Street, shuttered rather quickly yesterday. As Eater reported, the owners had previously announced that they would close or be sold. Metblogs published the following note last evening from the owners:

Dear Friends and Customers,
The Gramstand is closing today and will host a farewell garage sale through the day. Please do stop by and purchase some odds and ends from us. We apologize for the short notice, but it was short notice for us as well.
Due to the rising cost of doing business and an overwhelming financial situation, the Gramstand has been forced to close it’s doors.

The owners had been looking to sell the place for $250k or the best offer.

A bouquet for Five Rose's Pizza

Hunter-Gatherer pays tribute to Five Rose's Pizza on First Avenue. The neighborhood fixture closed Saturday. Rent hike, of course. As H-G writes:

Truth be told, as I would walk by the location I often wondered how long they could survive in the Nouvelle Village Est. With a place like Momofuko next door, I’m sure other local landlords are salivating over rent hikes as well.

Survival of the independents

From an editorial in The Villager this week titled "Helping small stores"...a few excerpts:

A main victim of the city’s development boom has inarguably been the small businessperson, as mom-and-pop shops struggle to operate in a dense metropolis increasingly driven by real estate interests.

But with the recent economic meltdown — a reality check that exposed Wall St.’s avarice — some small businesses have received a precarious stay of execution as the market chills and rents freeze in place.

While not the best circumstances for a reprieve, the current economic situation does raise interesting questions about ensuring the survival of independent, locally owned retail businesses.

From restaurants and grocers to hardware stores and barbershops, the plight of Village- and Downtown-area mom-and-pop stores has been well publicized, as neighborhood institutions like the Jefferson Market face rising rents and competition from chain operations.

...

In the end, much responsibility lies with us — the consumers — to support our local stores by patronizing them.

Without our support, the city’s diversity of offerings will give way to a streetscape of banks, chain drugstores and fast-food restaurants. And a Starbucks on every corner.

[Photo by Jeremiah Moss]

A quick check on Nassau Street

Back in June, I did a post about walking around Nassau Street in the Financial District. At the time, I wondered how many of the mom-and-pop businesses could stay open with the condofication of the area under way. So far, just on the stretch of Nassau between John Street and Ann Street, four businesses are either closing (like the one above) or have already shuttered. (And then there's Burritoville, which had a location here.) Sure, one thing may not have anything to do with the other, but...

Farewell to the Emerald Inn

This just makes me sick. The Emerald Inn on Columbus Avenue (near 69th Street) will be closing next spring. Rent for the bar, which opened in 1943, "is more than doubling" to $350,000 a year "for the cozy, 800-square-foot saloon."

And get this: Owner Charlie Campbell, whose grandfather opening the place when FDR was in office, "got the bad news when he saw the location advertised for lease on the Web site of real estate brokerage CB Richard Ellis."

Here's some of the report from the Post:

The cozy inn, with a few booths and faded pictures on the walls, was once well known as a "beer and a shot" joint.

In the mid-1980s, Columbus Avenue was a rough stretch of blue-collar taverns, bodegas and hardware stores, with few of today's high-end boutiques and beaneries.

But the Upper West Side's whirlwind gentrification changed everything, and the Emerald Inn today draws mostly upscale customers.

Among them yesterday was Michael Morfit, 46, a partner in Lighthouse Financial, who said he comes in twice a week.

"We used to have all these ma-and-pa shops," Morfit lamented over a couple of Buds. "Now all you have is big companies like Circuit City and Best Buy, because smaller companies can't afford the rents."

Well, I'll spare you from yammering away about how much I like the Emerald Inn. It's expected to close in May. Go and enjoy while you can... and stop by the P&G while you're at it.

The East Village loses another mom-and-pop shop

Jill at Blah Blog Blah laments the closing of David's Bagels on First Avenue. She writes that this is "a serious loss for the East Village, a neighborhood formerly crawling with places to get fresh bagels. No more. Now we will have to either go very far to find a fresh bagel, or buy them from the heinous Hot & Crusty, which is more crusty and less hot." (The Hot & Crusty chain store was conveniently placed right next door to David's.) As Jeremiah has noted, we should get ready to say goodbye to this stretch of First Avenue.



[Photos by Jill at Blah Blog Blah]

It's not your imagination

From today's Post of New York:

A new study shows what many an old-time New Yorker has been griping about for years - chain stores appear to be taking over.
In its first-ever ranking of national retailers in the city, the Center for an Urban Future yesterday published its list of chains with the most outlets in the five boroughs.
Dunkin' Donuts took the title with 341, ahead of upscale coffee competitor Starbucks, which came in fourth at 235.
The pricey java joint did rank No. 1 in Manhattan with 186, ahead of 78 for Dunkin', which concentrates on the outer boroughs.
Jonathan Bowles, director of the center, a nonpartisan think tank, said he and his researchers conducted the study because, well, they were curious.
"We've been hearing so much talk about the proliferation of national chains in New York and how mom-and-pop stores have been pushed out of the city, but it struck me that there was so little data," he told The Post. "We wanted to provide a backdrop to this discussion."



Download a PDF of the survey here.

Oh. Oops. Sorry. I missed that everyone covered this yesterday...at Gothamist...the Observer...Crain's...

[Dunkin' Donuts photo by EV Grieve]

About that nice little family-owned pharmacy that I'd go to

My doctor's office is on Madison Avenue in the 30s, one of those nondescript buildings full of, uh, doctors. On the ground level, there was a small, family-owned pharmacy. This was, of course, quite convenient for getting prescriptions filled. They were fast and friendly. When I went to my doctor this week for an appointment:



One of the maintainance guys in the lobby said that the pharmacy couldn't afford the rent anymore; that they'd have much more space in the Bronx for a lot less money. Of course.

It's still a fairly dull stretch of Madison Avenue, but, as Jeremiah noted in March, change is coming. Quickly.

On 33rd Street and Madison, site of a new 33-story condo-hotel combo.

At Apiary: New American and no booze for minors

Apiary has been described as a "new American" restuarant. Open Table (via Eater) offered this description: "Apiary fills a unique niche in the East Village...the chef’s interpretation of American, Regional and Seasonal ingredients will exceed the expected and excite the palates of the guest, offered with all the warmth of hospitable service in a refined setting." It opens soon at 60 E. Third Ave. near 11th Street, a location that used to house the type of business that is becoming extinct in the neighborhood: a laundromat.

By the way, the management at Apiary wants you to know that minors won't be served any booze. Noted.