One of Manhattan’s Only Uyghur Restaurants Has Been Evicted — And More Closings

More than two years after New York’s first indoor dining shutdown, restaurants and bars continue to struggle. More than 1,000 have closed since the onset of the pandemic due to the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Due to the difficulty of tracking restaurant and bar closings, experts say that number could be even higher and will likely take months or even years to assess.

Below, Eater is documenting the city’s permanent restaurant closures, including an acclaimed modern Korean restaurant and a Manhattan food hall. If a restaurant or bar has closed in your neighborhood, let us know at ny@eater.com. This post will be updated regularly.

October 21

Chelsea: L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon, one of Manhattan’s two-Michelin-starred restaurants, is officially done in Chelsea. The fine dining restaurant with outposts in Las Vegas and Miami temporarily closed at the start of the pandemic but never reopened

Crown Heights: A Brooklyn bar known for its chicken-fried steak, jambalaya, and other foods that pay homage to New Orleans has closed. That’s right, Catfish is done. The popular Crown Heights spot announced the closure over Instagram earlier this month, closing things out on Sunday, October 16 with “one last Saints game.”

Financial District: The owners of Caravan Uyghur Cuisine, one of Manhattan’s only Uyghur restaurants, say they have been evicted over a series of miscommunications with their landlord in the Financial District. “The eviction was caused not by a lack of diligence, but of language barriers,” according to an online petition intended to reverse the eviction, which occurred in late August. The restaurant has been temporarily closed since then, and owner Abdul Ahat Bakri, a first-generation Uyghur immigrant, confirmed this week that Caravan would not be reopening at its Pearl Street address. He’s now searching for a new home for the restaurant in Manhattan.

Greenpoint: Greenpoint favorite Anella has closed after 13 years. The Franklin Street restaurant was run by former owner Blair Papagni from May 2009 to May 2021, when she sold the space to friend Sean Curneen. Papagni tells Greenpointers the restaurant has closed so that Curneen can “spend more time with his family.”

Lower East Side: Zhen Wei Fang, an extravagant hot pot spot that Eater critic Ryan Sutton once called “absolutely wild,” is no more. The restaurant with a robot host that speaks Mandarin, $80 wagyu beef, private karaoke rooms, and pastoral scenes projected onto its dining room walls temporarily closed in December 2020, according to a note on its website. It never reopened, and has since been labeled “permanently closed” on Google.

October 14

East Village: Dumpling Lab, one of a handful of new restaurants to be awarded Michelin Bib Gourmand status this year, has already closed. The year-old dumpling spot went dark around the time of the recognition, according to EV Grieve, and its owners are currently on the hunt for a new location to reopen the business.

East Village: Oiji won’t be reopening on First Avenue. The restaurant, once considered one of the city’s best modern Korean spots, has been temporarily closed since the team opened Oiji Mi, their Flatiron follow-up that debuted in May and received a Michelin star this month. A spokesperson confirms this week that the space that housed Oiji since 2015 has since been handed over to Hand Hospitality, the restaurant group behind Her Name Is Han and other Manhattan restaurants, who plan to open a new Korean restaurant at the address. Chef Brian Sehong Kim is now looking for a new location to reopen Oiji.

Flatiron District: National cheese maker Beecher’s Handmade Cheese has closed its Manhattan restaurant after more than a decade. In a message shared online, the company attributed the closure to the pandemic. “We hung in there through these last years, but unfortunately, we have not been able to recover from the pandemic’s effect on the neighborhood,” the note reads.

Garment District: Manhattan food hall the Deco is done. The space closed on September 30, according to an announcement on the food hall’s Facebook page, spelling an end for its few remaining vendors. Nansense, a popular Afghan food stall that started as a truck, has closed, as has Antojitos Caseros, a Mexican restaurant that once sold tacos from the back of a South Bronx bodega. First-time restaurateur Doris Huang opened the food hall in 2019, turning heads with her roster of “actually exciting” food options. The space temporarily closed the following year as a result of the pandemic, returning with limited hours and fewer vendors in early 2021.

Little Italy: CafeTal, a homestyle Italian restaurant that got its start as a social club in the 1940s, has called it quits. The owners announced the decision over Instagram, closing things out with a final night of service on October 8.