Xi’an Famous Foods Reopens for Tingly Hand-Pulled Noodle Takeout This Week

Multiple locations of Xi’an Famous Foods reopen this Friday

New York City’s popular hand-pulled noodle chain Xi’an Famous Foods will reopen five of its stores over the next two weeks, CEO Jason Wang tells Time Out.

The company’s original restaurant in Flushing will reopen for takeout orders of its hand-pulled noodles this Friday, as will its Upper East Side storefront on East 78th Street. Looking ahead, Xi’an Famous Foods plans to reopen stores in the West Village and Downtown Brooklyn next week, as well. The company’s Woodside outpost — which is attached to the kitchen where it makes its chile oil and meal kits — previously reopened on July 10, according to an announcement on the restaurant’s website. Orders at all of the reopened locations are being limited to pre-order pick-up, and none of the stores will accept cash, Time Out reports.

Wang has kept all 14 of the company’s stores closed since the shutdown on indoor dining went into effect in March. In May, the noodle chain announced that it would start selling meal kits, dumplings, and chile oil online, but CEO Jason Wang tells Time Out that sales from those businesses haven’t been enough to offset rent at all of the company’s stores. A month later, in June, Xi’an Famous Foods permanently closed its Greenpoint outpost. At that time, Wang anticipated that his restaurant in the West Village was likely to close, as well, though it’s now scheduled to reopen. Wang confirmed the likelihood of additional closures in an email to Time Out, but he did not specify which locations would be affected.

In other news

— Flatiron’s all-day Japanese bistro, Hall, is now delivering sushi in Brooklyn, according to a spokesperson for the restaurant. Three omakase boxes are available for pick-up and delivery from 228 Flatbush Avenue, between Bergen Street and Sixth Avenue, in Park Slope.

— Grandchamps, a Haitian restaurant in Bed-Stuy, is facilitating trainings for its staff on how to engage with NYPD officers when stopped.

— One of the few Indonesian restaurants in Manhattan, Bali Kitchen in the East Village, has announced that it will be closing on August 1.

— A 60,000-square-foot Whole Foods opens in Manhattan West, the splashy new development across from Hudson Yards, this Friday.

— Those indoor dining tables at Grand Central Terminal are now gone, the New York Post reports.

— The Brooklyn Eagle asks: Without waiter jobs, what happens to creative New York?

— 1 clack = 1 sob: