Seamstress, One of UES’s Most Serious Cocktail Shops, Will Close This Weekend

One of the UES’ few hip cocktail destinations is closing this weekend. Seamstress, which opened in 2015, will cease serving fancy cocktails and Southern-tinged American food in the neighborhood on Sunday.

Management at Seamstress tells Eater NY that the restaurant is closing for financial reasons and that it was not profitable. The bar serves trendy cocktails — one made with chai vermouth, another with an amaro blend and midori — in a vintage, rustic setting. Dark red leather banquettes lined the room, and antique sewing machines in the space nodded at the name. As for food, Southern-inspired bar snacks like biscuits with chili honey and fried chicken was on the menu.

This team has had some rough luck lately. Some of the Seamstress team came from the now-closed cocktail spot The Gilroy, which lived nearby on the UES before shuttering in 2017. The Seamstress team — including founding member and former Dead Rabbit bartender Pamela Wiznitzer — also opened Southern-inspired Belle Shoals in Williamsburg in 2016, but that closed last year, too.