Vegan restaurant Cafe Blossom will close its doors on Mother’s Day, which falls on May 11 this year. The restaurant on 82nd and Columbus, faced a massive rent increase, according to a tipster: “Their rent was more than doubled.” We couldn’t reach the managers to confirm the rent increase.
The restaurant, which has three other locations around the city, has received good reviews and it’s one of a few local restaurants with a wide variety of vegan options. The menu includes dishes like Smoked BBQ Tempeh. It opened on the UWS in 2007.
Photo via yelp.
Maybe a nice bank will replace it. We need more banks here on the UWS.
All very disturbing. Bloomberg ruined NYC.
“very disturbing” is that you believe every negative comment about either big business or real estate.
The financial sector fuels New York’s economy – how about the hundreds of thousands of good paying jobs and the taxes the employees pay to NY?
Yes many companies are avoiding some taxes by relocating off shore. We should pressure CONGRESS who can controll that , not NYC.
Bloomberg did not “ruin” new York, and besides, your guy is now in office, the buck stops with BDB.
Bring back Guiliani!
THANK YOU, Webot, FOR SPEAKING TRUTH!
All the wannabe-lefties and quasi-OWS types love to mouth the same untruths…that a basically decent SCANDAL-FREE Mayor somehow “ruined” our city.
Where’s the “ruin”:
Is it the great pedestrian plazas in Times Square, Herald Square, etc.that allow anyone to sit down and really watch the city go past?
Is it the development of “Queens West” where even the BDB administration just green-lighted the development of the Domino Sugar site after wrangleding additional AFFORDABLE HOUSING from the developer?
Maybe it’s Brooklyn Bridge Park with its wonderful pathways and open spaces providing a wonderful view of Manhattan?
Or could it be the revived Chelsea/High Line area with its new architecture AND where the great Whitney Museum of Art will open next year?
No point in answering. The people who hate Bloomberg for his personal wealth will never change their worn-out one-note tune.
Or a Deanne Reade? And meanwhile newer and less savvy residents of NYC have been tremendously brainwashed into thinking that the tax revenue from f’ing banks and other crap stores somehow keeps NYC functioning. Bull! They’re headquartered offshore and pay NO tax. Thank you Mr Bloomberg whose income went from 1 billion $ to 31 billion $ in 12 years??
Yes, another bank. Who else could afford double the rent currently being paid? This is a symptom of a larger concern. Money talks and everyone who doesn’t have all the money, walks….
Vegetarianism is associated with eventual mental disorder. See https://www.BeyondVeg.com/ for war stories akin to an AA meeting. Eating what is *natural* for humans is key to happiness and normal sociability that doesn’t create a nasty subcultural vibe that drives everyday normal customers away, in droves. Exhibit A is the vast contrast between the gym-going single women streaming in and out of the aggressive panhandler ridden 96th St. subway station industrial park intrance and the osteoporotic nanny state harpies you actually find within walking distance of that same stop, in cafes, except for Pio Pio which is full of gals in skin tight tube dresses, but they ain’t been to college so won’t date us inventors. I can still get a huge strip steak and wine at both the Manchester and Manhattan diners though, but where’s the local babes? They are still *downtown*.
As Woody Allen once said, I think I hear $50,000 worth of psychotherapy dialing 911.
The city would be amenable to giving tax breaks to landlords in order to induce them not to increase rents excessively on small businesses. Unfortunately, since the city cannot even purchase toilet paper without the approval of the State legislature, who sees the city only as a piggy bank, this is not going to happen. Unfortunately, secession is not an option.
So every NYC tax-payer should, in effect, ‘contribute’ money to pay property owners to subsidize the rents of businesses unable to generate sufficient cash to pay market rents? I don’t think so.
Kenneth, every NYC taxpayer is giving millions and millions to developers to build buildings they would build anyway and those buildings are chewing up our neighborhoods and our small businesses. The CITY is encouraging and subsiding this rent gouging and the flight of small businesses because of skyrocketing rent. Why should small business be treated differently that billionaire developers? In my opinion the benefits of small business make treating them better than developers totally acceptable.
Kidville (next door) is leaving that building too, and moving to 88th and Amsterdam from June probably for the same reason…
The real reason why so many banks are taking over huge amounts off retail space in Manhattan is to hide the fact that the city’s retail market has collapsed due to exorbitant rents and costs of doing business. They are big investors in these buildings, coops and condos, and they are propping it all up to save their investments, until the bubble bursts as it always does. Then the bank branches will disappear leaving us with a million 7-11s, Chiotles, Starbucks and Duane Reades..
There is not single shred of fact or truth in any part of the Georgi comment.
When is the CITY going to do something to help small restaurants and other businesses to fight back against the greedy landlords who are just looking for the next itinerant chain or bank. It really is appalling that we can give developers millions and millions and millions but there isn’t a $ for small business to encourage retention. When we lose small business we lose much more that just a place to eat.
Again, demonizing “greedy” landlords.
yes of course some are, but they are not any different that any other business , except landlords can’t relocate the business.
Please mention the doubling and tripling of taxes, water, sewer charges – all under the control of New York City.
Not to mention the thicket of red tape to open and run a business or restaurant in New York.
all of this garbage is annoying. there should be a war to clear out the garbage and confusion and re-set our sense of value. yes, a war.
This is exactly why landlords will roast in heat (not a pizza oven, hotter). Landlords roast neighborhoods!!
Landlords are doing exactly what they should be doing, trying to get as much money for as little space as possible. They are running a business, not a charity or a public service. They purchase buildings and lease space to make money, as much money as they can, this is still, rightly, a capitalist country. Why should business owners, such as landlords, be compelled to accept less money for the public good? Why are landlords in a different class of people than Thomas Keller, the owner of Per Se, who charges over $300/meal? Should he give the food away? Of course not. Keller is in business to make as much money as he can, that’s the American way. Bunch of communists on this board don’t see it that way, they think that the government should force business to do less business for the public good. That’s good for nobody.
I’m still waiting 4 a supermarket 2 replace Food Emporium!!! Anybody know anything??
Well, I know how to spell “for” and “to”.
This is a bummer. As a serious carnivore, I enjoyed Blossom when I went there.
It’s called a “market rate” and the market will support until it won’t anymore. Blossom chose not to support it. Maybe another business will. Maybe the storefronts will sit empty for 6 months. Maybe a bank will locate there. Maybe it won’t. This same story is going on all over NYC, in different forms, whether it be Brooklyn or the UWS. It is a measure of success, not failure, that prices go up. It means wealth is generally increasing overall.
Bloomberg was the best! Not beholden to anyone or any group because of his fabulous (and self-made I might add)wealth. Now we have a guy who sells out the horse drawn carriage industry for $50k in campaign donations.
bloomberg presided over a couple of HUGE scandals that for some reason did not get the reporting that was due — see City Time, in the order of 700 million. Juan Gonzalez in the Daily News was the only one really reporting on this. Not to mention the appalling way he BOUGHT his third term.
Deblasio, on the other hand, has very important accomplishments in a very short time:
— ending racial profiling as the method used for “stop and frisk”
— closing down the unconstitutional “spy on Muslims” squad
— universal Pre-K for all (!)
— extending paid sick leave to hundreds of thousands more workers
— and now, starting to unravel the huge labor mess Bloomberg made with an innovative teachers contract.
Yes there is such a thing as free market capitalism; however, that is not the same thing as unmitigated greed. Yes, a landlord should be entitled to make a reasonable return for his/her investment.
However, NYC and most of the UWS has lost the characteristics that made the City and the UWS unique. I moved to New York City about 35 years ago. One of the things that attracted me to the City was the unique little mom and pop shops and restaurants. Unfortunately, most of them are gone, e.g., Big Nick’s, Niko’s, etc.
I didn’t move to NYC to shop at large chain retail stores like CVS and Duane Reade and to see every shop turned into a bank, a pharmacy or a high end clothing store. All of the characteristics that differentiated various NYC neighborhoods are gone. There is no Little Italy anymore. Even New York City’s Chinatown has lost its allure.
You can’t find any live music venues anymore — Roseland is gone, BCGB’s is a clothing store. When is it ever going to end??
The sad thing is that there is a lack of services — shoemakers, laundromats, grocery stores with realistic prices.
Every time I go through the Disneyland mall at Time Square I cry. Blame whoever you want — Bloomberg, etc.; but, the things that made NYC so wonderful are fast becoming history. NYC is becoming a sterile concrete jungle of high rise co-ops and condos.
NYC is on its way to becoming a “gated community” island for only the super rich who can afford to travel to other locations for a taste of the ethnic spice and variety that was so much a part of the fabric of life in New York City.
well, Liz if new york today makes you cry, maybe you should consider living somewhere else.
BTW – yeah BCBG is a clothing store – its a clothing company. I believe you mean CBGBs.
Yes its sad when things change from our youth, but the city is not disney in that disney stays the same. New York does not. it may not be what it was , but i think its still pretty cool and i embrace the changes. Chinatown is pretty alluring to me, yes shrinking (after decades of growing to take over Little Italy and the Lower East Side) but I like to check out the new Chinatowns in Flushing and Sunset Park. Yea, little Italy is almost gone as is the Jewish LES, but there a many factors to that , both had populations that assimilated and moved upward and did not have new immigrants to replace them.
Great boutiques owned by independent designers line the streets of once Little Italy – no called Nolita. Also have you gone to the Brooklyn Flea? great independent and up and coming creaitves get their start there and move to storefronts all over north brooklyn and downtown Manhattan.
The point is that the world changes and to continue to bemoan New York as dead or dying is simply not true. New York is different, but I think its better.
However, i am gravely concerned that after all the gains of Bloomberg and Guiliani , BDB will take us back to the dark days of Dinkins. Giving away billions and billions in unearned back pay to the Teachers union (as pay back for backing his election) should give all New Yorkers pause. WE simply cannot afford union giveaways while our schools fail our children, crime is increasing and our streets are getting dirtier.
you’re such a nasty piece of work. teachers, of course, have not had raises in years and years, and the raises they are receiving are very modest.
btw, the UFT DID NOT back De Blasio when he needed them — in the primary. They did so in the general election but he hardly needed them to beat the pro-1% candidate, Lhota.
De Blasio has actually had amazing accomplishments in his first 4 months in office, including:
— ending the racist “stop and frisk” program (racial profiling)
— ending the special “spy on Muslims” sqaud
— universal Pre-K (!)
— extending paid sick leave to hundreds of thousands of more workers
— and reaching a long term contract with the UFT, which starts to clean up the utter mess Bloomberg made of NYC labor contracts.
bloomberg left De Blasio with a “hidden deficit” of billions of dollars because ALL NYC public employee unions were operating w.o contracts, some (like the UFT) for many years. most NYC workers have not recevied a raise in 6 years.
yes you said the same thing above. I am enfitiled to my opinion without being called names.
Avi why am I sometimes blocked and yet Mr. (allegedly) Bernstein is allowed to attack personally when anyone does not fall lock step in his extremist (anarchist) left wing agenda?
We’ve been blocking comments from several people. Hoping readers can chill out and realize they’re just expressing an opinion on a community news site.
Avi
look who is calling nasty?
I am enjoying living in today’s New York -see above
Not some rose colored fantasy of the past. Nor do I think the failed policies of the far left worked in the past or will in the future.
Not everyone is a miserable as you.