Renovations have claimed another local spot for the next few weeks/months. Mercury Bar, along 9th Ave, has closed while the owners give it a makeover:
Italian restaurant Rino Trattorina has been closed for a number of months now while undergoing renovations. Over the past few days however that’s changed, and they silently went from closed-for-now to closed-for-good.
The place had a rocky history, with a 2½ star rating on Yelp, this nightmare of an alternate website, and somebizzaretweets, but they’ve apparently been around since 1999, so it’s been an impressive run. Here’s the place in it’s heyday:
While Rino Trattorina may be closed, this isn’t the end: their sister store Daniela Trattoria is still going a few blocks south between 45th&46th, so the Trattoria family lives on.
As the sign says, if you can’t survive without your EK fix you can visit their other locations, but be warned: the nearest ones are down in Chelsea or way across town.
This is a cautionary tale of what happens when you don’t pay your rent. The French restaurant La Silhouette was closed this week, after their place was repossessed by the marshals.
They’ve had some rocky times before, most notably getting a one-star review from the NY Times, which they bravely linked to (although they’re at 4⁄5 stars on Yelp). We’ll have to wait and see if they’re able to patch things up with their landlord, or if this is the end of La Silhouette.
Sigh. A nice little café along 9th Ave is being replaced with what we can only imagine will be a “bacon-inspired” bar. Bacon is trendy at the moment, if you didn’t notice, so naturally opening a bar named after it can only lead to good things.
The spot they’re moving in to is the former home of Brasilina Café, a Brazilian café which opened back in 2011. They closed their doors this month, making way for BarBacon…
If you want to see what Brasilina’s was like while open, or just want to try out the novelty, they have a 360º virtual tour on their site for some reason. It’s safe to say the place is going to get a whole lot less classy real soon.
Yum Yum Too, also known as “the second Yum Yum”, apparently has a case of the restaurant-equivalent of middle child syndrome so has closed for renovations.
It’s definitely going to be tough to find somewhere to replace Yum Yum Too while they’re closed. There’s nothing like them at all nearby…except I guess for Yum Yum 1 and Yum Yum 3 literally the next block over.
Turns out the Greek spot Ouzaria, between 50th&51st on 9th, isn’t closed for good, but are actually just doing renovations. The place closed mysteriously in the past months, and there hadn’t been too many signs of life since then. Today though we got a peek behind the curtain shutters, and found the signs that explained everything.
As the sign says, you can still order from their still-open place next door, so don’t worry, there’s not a total lack of Greek food in that area just yet.
A little late on this one, but the seemingly-popular Turkish spot Lezzette, near the corner of 34th&9th, has closed its doors for good, as noticed by Midtown Lunch.
Roseland moved to its current location in 1956, and was bought by its current owner in 1981, who promised not to shut it down. Apparently money beats promises, given the pending closure.
It’s not like the cavernous Roseland on West 52nd St. isn’t busy. It’s used all the time for concerts, dances, and Broadway show openings. But the space must be coveted by real estate developers, Bloomberg’s favorite New Yorkers, for use as yet another skyscraper of condos with a CVS and large, anonymous restaurant in its base.
It’s impossible to imagine that area without Roseland. At almost 60 years at that spot, it’s probably older than most of the people who even live in the area nowadays. For now, there’s still a number of events coming up at Roseland, so you’ve got a few opportunities to experience Roseland one last time, before the steady march of gentrification claims the venue.
It looks like the pizza bar Zigolini’s on 9th Ave has joined the list of Fall closed restaurants. They haven’t been open for at least the past few days, and they’ve even taken their signage down from above the store:
Doing a quick check, their Twitter and website are still up, but it looks like their Facebook page has been deleted.
It’s been a rough few months for Zigolini’s – they were shuttered by the health department for a week back in August, then closed for a bit during September for renovations. Their former neighbor Phở 66 also closed this year, and no new tenant have taken their place yet, so this strip will start looking a bit bare with Zigolini’s gone too.
Another day, another closure. Kiran Indian Cuisine, just west of 53rd&9th, looks like it’s shuttered its doors. Some of their furniture was dumped on the sidewalk over the past few days, and their usually-bright lights haven’t been on lately.
The spot has had its ups and downs, including scoring a C on their health inspection earlier this year (which was later upgraded to an A). Regardless of what’s in store for this place in the future, we’ll be interested to see if their year-round-Christmas lights stay up.
Fall really is the season of change. Along with the numerous new places opening in the coming months, there’s also a couple of closures that have appeared suddenly. The latest one to join this group is Chanpens, a Thai restaurant at the corner of W 51st St &9th Ave, as spotted by nearby neighbor George Stoll.
Chanpens closure was almost in sync with across-the-intersection neighbor Go Sushi, who also shuttered in the last week. Any more and we’ll have a trend. Fortunately there’s no shortage of Thai food on 9th Ave, so it shouldn’t be too hard for regulars to find a new place to get your pad thai fix. Nothing will be able to beat that super modern signage though.
It’s been a long time coming, but it looks like this is the first step of Vynl’s big move one store over. Back in the start of June we noticed the application submitted by Vynl to make the move into Go Sushi’s spot, but until now nothing had come of it.
