Several new restaurants serving Thai food, crepes and baked goods have recently opened or are expected to open soon on the Upper West Side. A few well-liked spots have also closed.
Crepes & Delices opened last week at 124 West 72nd street in the former home of Subway sandwiches. The restaurant serves sweet and savory crepes, along with coffee and cold drinks. Check out the menu here. Owner Florent Cohen, who used to work on Wall Street, said running a small business is a totally different challenge, but that he’s enjoying it so far. For the next week, if you mention West Side Rag and buy one crepe, he’ll give you a second sugar and butter crepe for free.
Cocina Economica, the Mexican restaurant on Amsterdam between 81st and 82nd streets, closed on August 30. The restaurant, run by the same people who ran Recipe in the same space before it, opened in December 2012. It will be replaced by a restaurant called Sen, which is now seeking a liquor license. A tipster tells us that the new restaurant will serve Thai food, a curious choice given that Land is so close by (and happens to be really good).
Chocolate Works, the candy shop on 91st and Amsterdam that closed for a few weeks for renovations, has reopened with a colorful and brightly lit interior.
The Equinox gym that just replaced Reebok Sports Club on 68th and Columbus is apparently opening some sort of eatery, which is applying for a liquor license there. The hearing for the license at Community Board 7 is on Wednesday, September 10.
Red Stone Cafe opened recently on West 72nd street in the former home of Energy Kitchen (we had initially thought it would be Red Stone Pizzeria). The interior looks about the same as the former restaurant. They sell sandwiches, salads and soups, as well as a full breakfast menu.
Spices and Tease at 2580 Broadway between 97th and 98th streets, closed recently. Says Paul: “This was a nice specialty shop that sold an array of teas, salts, sugars, and other items. It was a welcoming nook with tables and free wifi, but I could tell the place was struggling for a while as there was hardly ever a soul in there. They shortened their hours over the summer then pulled the plug last week.” Spices & Tease sells its stuff at holiday markets too, and at Grand Central Market and Chelsea Market. Thanks to Paul for the photo.
Paris Baguette, the coffee and pastry chain, is opening a new location in the former home of Beauty Salon Plus on Broadway between 96th and 97th streets. Thanks to Jayson and Loren for the photos.
But I thought the people who opened Recipe were the same people who owned Land — which would mean that they, after changing Recipe to Cocina Economica, and now abandoning that venture — are about to open competition with their own place right next door.
What’s wrong with this picture??
I agree. I doubt the Land Thai people are putting another Thai place there. Sen sounds very Japanese to me…. we will see!
Sen is Japanese. They have one in Sag Harbor in Hamptons.
Right. Silly, overpriced, pretentious, and impossible to get into — because it’s packed with people who love to eat in silly, overpriced and pretentious places.
Oh, and the food’s not so good, either. (Yep, been there — once. No interest in going back.)
Just what we need in the neighborhood.
Ah, progress!
Loved Recipe, liked Economica a lot. Hope their new venture does well, although the notion of side-by-side doesn’t sound quite right.
Frustrating. Cocina Economica was great. When Recipe closed I figured they wanted to do more delivery business (like Land). I wonder what went wrong?
If the point of replacing Recipe with Cocina was to increase their delivery business why didn’t they ever go on Seamless? This goes for Land Thai as well. I know there are probably fees associated with listing on Seamless, but I can’t count the number of times I walked by Cocina and thought, “I should really order from them sometime”. Yet whenever it comes time to actually choose a place to order from, I go right to Seamless. I probably would have ordered from both of those places 10-15 times each last year if I had seen their name pop up on the Seamless list.
It doesn’t make sense to me that Cocina Economica closed. It was hard to get a table there pretty much all the time, and the food and drinks were terrific. I wonder if the space is just too small to run a profitable sit-down restaurant.
Land is truly awful Thai food, it represents all that is soulless and terrible about the restaurant selection in UWS. Next you’ll be writing that the cursed 71st street mcdonalds is a cherished uws institution…
Right on! I couldn’t have summed up restaurant reporting on the UWS any better.
We hold UWSR to be our guide to all things WS and was disappointed to read that UWSR thought favorably of Land’s food.
We tried Land several times and found each meal to be overly sweet. It may be fine for the stroller set but we crossed it off our list.
Funny that you refer to the stroller set when my biggest beef with Land is that it is too small to go to with kids. I think it is the best Thai food in the area, and at pretty reasonable prices.
I have tried just about everything on the menu at Land and the only things remotely sweet are the dipping sauces for a couple appetizers. Maybe you had a stroke and your sense of taste is off.
“Stroller set”? As if having a family somehow precludes you from having good taste and appreciate excellent cuisine? Move back to Brooklyn, you clearly miss your artisanal farm-to-table snobbery and ageist clientele.
Hey, Thai food. Move to Jersey.
The new Thai place going in is not from the same owner. They gave up the space… Aka have no control on what goes into it.
I spoke with the new owners or family. They gave me the scoop.
I am sad that the Mexican placed closed it was fantastic.
And what about Vareli? It seems to be closed AGAIN!?!
not everything at Land is great, but it is a great restaurant by UWS standards. Economica was unique and its closing a huge loss for the neighborhood. Not your standard tex-mex or SW fare, truly original plates and a good margarita. Agree its upsetting that a seemingly successful place like this couldn’t survive.
And Vareli is gone again? I hadn’t even made it back yet to see if they still had that great burger…
I like Land, and their lunch deal is an absolute steal. But I’m sad about Cocina Economica — I thought it was really good. I think we needed that more than we necessarily need another Japanese restaurant (though I love Japanese food too). Disappointing that Cocina closed — I really liked it.
Spices and Tease deserved to close. The one time I shopped there I ordered 4 ozs of loose tea, but discovered when I got home that they gave me less than 2 ozs, at a cost of over $70 per pound.
I am heartbroken that Cucina Economica is closed. I loved that place! I was just calling to order the salmon in the banana leaf and avocado cornbread….
Red stone is already closed.