It's been sad to walk by and see this empty restaurant. With the doors wide open, there was always a view of the long faces of the staff waiting for customers to cross their threshold.
Unfortunately, their menu was mostly heavy meat dishes, unappealing in the heat of summer. I would certainly have considered that menu on a cold winter night, but not in June, July and August (and this hot September).
I hope their new menu is more appropriate to the season and wish them great success. This stretch of 2nd Ave is becoming desolate with so many empty storefronts.
Notice of Robataya Business Closing
Robataya will be going out of business on December 30, 2017.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your patronage.
Dear all TK lovers and TK Family:
Dec. 10th will be our last day to serve you.
[W]e are really glad that we brought this bubble tea and Taiwanese food culture into New York city, we also feel really thankful for those people who loved us, but unfortunately, we have to say goodbye.
We are truly thankful for people who support us, to us, this is not just a restaurant, it's somehow a part of Taiwanese's memory when you are in town, in New York, it is just like home, it is really hard to use words to describe how thankful and how sorry we have to make this decision.
We will keep working hard after we finish, as a matter of fact, we have a new idea [that we are] planning at the moment, we will be back soon!
After 15 years of serving the East Village and the Bowery, we would like to regretfully inform everyone that we will be closing on December 1st. Our last day of service will be November 30th. It has been a pleasure serving the community for over a decade. Our family would like to thank our hardworking dedicated staff, our customers, and regulars for your loyalty and patronage throughout the years. THANK YOU! We hope to see you soon!
I had started a small business representing certain natural foods, but I was going to different health-food stores around the country and trade shows and demonstrating their products. One day in 1981, I was at Greenberg’s. It was a very old school natural food store on First Avenue, between Seventh and St. Mark's Place. I was in there doing a miso demonstration and handing out samples and Frank Simons, the guy who had just bought Angelica Kitchen, walked in. I didn’t know him at the time but I had been a fan of Angelica. He and I caught each other’s eyes, to say it mildly. We got engaged and I moved from the mountains of North Carolina to New York to be with him. That was what got me here – falling in love and doing the right turn so many of us know about.
Angelica was at 42 St. Marks Place at that time. It was a small place and we had very few seats, so we had an open policy about seating. People came in and sat in any empty chair in the restaurant, whether it was a two top or a four top, so lots of connections were made that way. That was very fun. It was very community spirited. Organic wasn’t as much of an issue at that time but there were a lot of products available. That became my mission once I was in charge of the restaurant after Frank died. I really believed in the small, independent organic farmer as stewards of the land, so I was able to get on my soapbox through having Angelica Kitchen and really support the farmers.
Sadly, as a result of increased rent and operating costs combined with reduced patronage, the restaurant has been operating at a loss for over two years. Having poured all of her personal resources into the business in an attempt to sustain it, that effort has failed and she's now deeply in debt. Leslie feels a commitment to avoid having her difficulties adversely affect local farmers and small independent businesses, some of whom have been with Angelica Kitchen since the beginning.
Our goal for this fundraiser is $245,000.00. Unfortunately, nothing can be done to resuscitate Angelica Kitchen, but Leslie has many significant financial issues to deal with and would be grateful if Angelica could close with a clean slate, without financially damaging the small businesses who stood by her, some for 40 years.
It is bittersweet to announce that this will be our final week of service. Please join us as we celebrate an amazing 10 years. pic.twitter.com/aql14YUqBS
— The Redhead (@theredheadnyc) December 11, 2016
"Due to the incredible strains put onto small neighborhood Restaurants, the current economic environment, the totally unmanageable Labor Laws to small businesses, the incredible Greed of the City's Health Dept., this incredibly popular neighborhood favorite has no choice but to close its doors. Once a very successful neighborhood meeting place, Beginning as Mumbles in 1974, we have totally enjoyed all of the great relationships that we have formed in the neighborhood."
We have always loved the East Village. We were happy to find a storefront here. We wanted to open up a cafe as tea lovers and wanted to share our sense of taste and style. We have always loved how the East Village has a lot of mom-and-pop shops. We love the vibe of all the specialty stores and wanted to create one of our own.
Customers stand at 1m-high tables and order the precise number of grammes desired. The cost — Y5/gramme for rib-eye to more than Y10/g for sirloin — gives customers what Mr Ichinose claims is a vital sense of control.
Everything is calculated for speed of throughput and optimal use of limited ground floor spaces in key city locations. The height of the tables, Mr. Ichinose demonstrates by jumping up and miming, has been calibrated so that diners are unlikely to put their knives and forks down between mouthfuls. He pulls out a smartphone, which funnels him real-time CCTV footage of all the restaurants, to show this happening.
Pretty big for coffee enthusiasts in the neighborhood. Box Kite has closed! Went the day before for their brunch. Am pretty friendly with the baristas but I don't think they knew it was coming either. Texted one of them the next morning when I was greeted with locked doors and not a soul inside.
The location of the shop was never quite able to sustain the super premium coffee experience that it was set up to provide, and the other aspects of the business – the food and alcohol sales – never pulled their weight… The owner [Matt Prete] was always very up front with everyone that it was losing money and that he would be willing to tolerate it as long as it was fun and as long as we could get it reasonably closer to breaking even.
"While the news wasn’t altogether shocking (and part of the reason I’m no longer part of the project), I’m truly sorry for all the employees that lost their jobs and for all of the customers that went out of their way to give us their business. This was my first stab at owning something, and a great lesson on making better choices about who I will get into business with again."
