Yesterday marked its last day in business in the East Village.
The news first came via an EVG reader, who unsuccessfully tried to order catering online this past week. The reader then stopped by the EV Mighty Quinn's, "and the counter server told me they were shutting down and moving employees to the West Village location."
Here's a statement from the Mighty Quinn's founders via Facebook:
It’s hard to believe that 10 years have passed since we opened the first Mighty Quinn's in the East Village. We rolled a 6,000-pound smoker through our new dining room and parked it next to our cutting board, where it remains today. We all knew the adventure was going to be a wild ride and we feel blessed to have been able to serve so many from this restaurant. It is with a heavy heart that we have decided not to renew our lease at this location.While we wish to have been able to just keep our first restaurant in the system forever, many realities have made that path impractical.We hope that all our local guests will make the short trip over to our West Village location at 75 Greenwich Ave. after we close the East Village restaurant on April 9. We still offer delivery to every address in the East Village (and the surrounding areas) from our other locations.We’re excited about the future, with seven new restaurants in the pipeline, but will forever cherish our original home.Thank you to our team, our guests and the entire East Village neighborhood.
Mighty Quinn's started as a stall at Smorgasburg in 2011, later opening its first brick-and-mortar location here in December 2012. There are now multiple corporate locations in the NYC metro area, and ownership has been franchising, with restaurants in New Jersey, Maryland and Florida... and in Dubai.
Shortly after Mighty Quinn's opened here, we heard from some anonymous upstairs neighbors about the smell coming from the popular BBQ joint. One resident told us: "[O]ur apartments & hallways reek of barbecue, all the way to the top floor — it's coming up through the radiators, walls and floors." An exhaust duct was later added to the building.
Although their styles differed, this is the second barbecue restaurant to close within two blocks in recent months: Dallas BBQ shut down at the end of 2022.