Over Saturation in Crown Heights Might Be to Blame for Pacifico's Shutter

Many people — Eater included — were surprised to hear that Shanna Pacifico's eponymous Brazilian restaurant would close at the end of this week, so part-owner Roberto Aita can turn it into an Italian trattoria, which he thinks will be more profitable. Pacifico is understandably crushed by the shutter and explains to Brooklyn Magazine that a few years ago, this might not have happened:

Maybe if we opened in this neighborhood three or four years ago, and were one of the first great restaurants on the block, it would be a different story, but this neighborhood is saturated right now...When it comes down to it, we were a new restaurant in a neighborhood where people don't necessarily go out to eat every night of the week.

Pacifico, who left Back Forty West last March and was planning to leave the city before she opened Pacifico's, says: "I don't think I'll ever open another restaurant in NYC. So yeah, I guess you'd say I'm about a foot and a half out of the city at this point." She's leaving open the option of working as an executive chef at someone else's restaurant in the city, but that doesn't seem likely. "I enjoy working for myself," she says. But, "since I'm really heartbroken, it's hard for me to think about it clearly."