One of Brooklyn’s Newest Food Halls Shutters With ‘Zero Notice’ After Four Months

Williamsburg Market, a Brooklyn food hall that opened with around a dozen vendors last fall, has abruptly closed. Greenpointers first reported news of the closure.

A sign posted on the front door of the building states that the market is “under court supervision of [an] Assignee for the Benefit of Creditors.” An assignment for the benefit of creditors is an alternative to formal bankruptcy proceedings, in which a third party executes a company’s liquidation. The American Bar Association calls the move an “advantageous and graceful exit strategy.”

A partner at McManimon, Scotland & Baumann, a law firm listed on the sign, and a partner at Auction Advisors, a company specializing in business liquidations that was also listed, declined to comment on the reason for the closure.

The food hall, which had been operating for less than five months at the time of the announcement, notified vendors of the sudden closure on Monday evening, according to a former vendor, who spoke with Eater on the condition of anonymity. The following morning, the doors of the market at 103 North Third Street, near Berry Street, were allegedly locked as operators and employees attempted to retrieve their belongings from the space. Eater has reached out to the Williamsburg Market for comment.

“There was zero notice,” the vendor says. “We have 15 employees on staff. We’re trying to find a home for them as soon as possible. That’s our number one priority.”

Roughly a dozen food vendors operated out of the food hall at the time of the closure. They included outposts of the famed Di Fara pizza, Soho’s old-school sandwich shop Alidoro, and street vendor Harlem Seafood Soul. Earlier this year, Eater critic Robert Sietsema counted 19 available stalls in the market, with locations of Bao Tea House and Pasta Di Martino, which operates out of Chelsea Market, listed as forthcoming.

“The market closed abruptly and the vendors did not have any warning so it remains a mystery,” Maggie Mieles, an owner of Di Fara Pizza, said in an email to Eater. “We are hoping that the property owners will find a new owner and operator for the market as a whole so Di Fara and some of the other vendors can continue to do business.”

The vendor who spoke with Eater anonymously says that cracks at the food hall had started to show ahead of the closure. “It was a surprise, but it wasn’t,” they say. “The whole thing was rushed from the very beginning.” The vendor claims the market was not properly promoted, and that they were allegedly encouraged to start operating out of the space before it was completed.

Williamsburg Market, which opened on November 10, was described as having a “French country farmhouse meets Brooklyn industrial” decor in promotional emails from publicists, who touted its “chef-driven concepts.” The market is run by Moonrise Ventures, the hospitality group behind East Village nightclub Writing on the Wall, and Lower East Side bar the Orchard Room, which both opened in the spring of 2021. Eater has contacted Moonrise Ventures for more information.

The market succeeded North Third Street Market, a food hall at the same address, which opened in 2018. It closed in 2020 during the pandemic and never reopened. Some vendors, like Di Fara, appeared at both iterations of the market.

Update: March 30, 2023, 4:09 p.m.: This article was updated to include comments from Maggie Mieles, an owner of Di Fara Pizza.