Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy
And then there were none.
After 13 years on the Bowery between Third Street and Fourth Street, the 7-Eleven is closing its doors.
The posted signage states the store has permanently shuttered, though it was still open for business on Monday.
The cashier on duty said they'd likely be open until Friday.
Unlike the Avenue A outpost that had been slowly emptied out, there is still a lot of merchandise at the Bowery 7-Eleven...
The owner of the Avenue A 7-Eleven blamed the rampant thefts for his store's closure.
While an official explanation for the shutter wasn't offered on the Bowery, the cashier told me, "Things are very bad now."
"People — they're breaking things, stealing, scaring away customers at the door," he said while pointing to the entrance where there were several panhandlers. "Very bad."
The Bowery store opened in December 2011... and it was the first of four to open in the East Village, ushering in a wave of storefront suburbanization that repelled some residents. (On Avenue A, the No 7-Eleven group spoke out against the pending arrival of the multinational chain.)
The St. Mark's Place outpost closed in 2013, with 14th Street going in 2021.
Seven & I Holdings, the chain's Japan-based parent company, revealed in an earnings report last month that it would close more than 400 "underperforming" stores, CNN reported. The company did not provide a list of store locations, and it wasn't known if the two remaining East Village locations were on the list.
