Kellogg’s Cafe Is No Longer Peddling Bowls of Grocery Store Cereal in Union Square

Shocking absolutely no one, Kellogg’s NYC store on Union Square closed abruptly last week — ending the tenure for the cafe where tourists could buy a bowl of grocery store cereal for $1.50.

The cereal giant announced the closure on Instagram last week, and the space has already been stripped of all its bright red branding and transformed into a kids and parents holiday pop-up, which among other things features Wylie Dufresne’s Du’s Donuts.

Kellogg’s opened its first foray into the restaurant world in Times Square in 2016, an experiment in reaction to slowing cereal sales. The menu there was created by Milk Bar maven Christina Tosi and the cafe was run by Per Se alum Anthony Rudolf, to much initial popularity. Cereal bowls on the menu used brands like Special K and Frosted Flakes, adding things like lemon zest and pistachios — an attempt to encourage people to do more with cereal than eat it with milk.

The company later closed it and moved the cafe to Union Square in December 2017 at 31 East 17th Street, where the space was five times the size of the Times Square one. Rudolf remained a partner, and a former Cosme chef helped create the menu, though people like Lauren Conrad pitched in on menu ideas.

Now less than two years later, the cafe — which sold bowls of Special K, Frosted Flakes, and Mini-Wheats for $1.50, or $4 with toppings — is gone without a trace. While it might be higher than the price of a bowl at a corner store, it was significantly less than the $7.50 bowls sold at the Times Square location.

Several people lamented the shop’s loss on Kellogg’s Instagram post — it’s a long thread of sad face and crying emojis.

The two-story building is now a multi-purpose event space — still helmed by Rudolf and his partners — called the White Box. Eater has reached out to Kellogg’s for a comment on the sudden closure and will update this post accordingly.