East Village Staple Stage Suing Landlord Over Eviction, Asking Fans for $10K

East Village lunch counter the Stage Restaurant's is refusing to go down without a fight and the team is asking fans for backup in the form of ten grand to help finance a lawsuit against its landlord.

The neighborhood staple shuttered over a month ago after the 2nd Avenue explosion, and was told shortly after to get out by its landlord, who claimed the restaurant's owner Roman Diakun was tampering with gas lines in the building. Roman and his son Andrew have denied that those claims and "In order to clear the restaurant's name, and help us reopen, we have initiated a lawsuit against the landlord," says Andrew on the restaurant's crowdfunding page.

He asks: "If you can and you are willing to help, we ask you to donate so that we can attempt to sort things out, open up and return to our livelihood again." As of Friday morning, the team had raised $4,850, so just shy of half its goal.

Last week, Stage gave away a much of its supplies to The Bowery Mission and its across the street neighbor B & H Dairy, which has also remained dark since the explosion. The move made the situation look grim, but the team promises: "We just emptied the store of supplies because we don't know how much longer we will be closed for and figured we should give it to someone who needs it at the moment."