By Lisa Kava
Posh Pop Bakeshop, a gluten-free bakery, has signage up at Columbus Avenue (between West 83rd and West 84th streets). Posh Pop Bakeshop was founded in 2012 in Red Bank, N.J., and now has locations in Times Square and the West Village that are known for cakes, cheesecakes, cookies, brownies, cakepops, and more.
The new UWS location will be unique however, because it will serve a new savory menu alongside Posh Pop’s existing array of sweet baked goods. “Bringing Posh Pop to the Upper West Side is about more than just opening another bakery,” co-founder Kiki Pytel said in an announcement. “We’re creating a space that feels like home, where families, professionals, and food lovers can come together over the nostalgic foods and classic favorites you’d never expect to find gluten-free.”
The new location is expected to open in early to mid-September, with special events and tastings planned throughout launch week. The space was most recently a smoke shop and, before that, Matsu Sushi, which closed in 2022. (Thanks to Emily and Jonathan for the tips.)
Purple Waves, the cafe and wine bar at 285 West 110th Street (near Central Park North), closed temporarily for renovations on August 25th. When it reopens on September 6th, it will have an expanded market section featuring “everyday staples alongside special small-batch items,” the cafe’s founder, Sharon Avnon Reuveni, wrote in a message to the Rag. The selection will include: local farm-fresh eggs and dairy (plus vegan/dairy-free options); jarred goods like pickles, jams, nut butters, and spreads; pantry staples such as grains, pasta, and legumes; and specialty items like maple syrup, honey, and regional oils and vinegars.
Purple Waves will have the same footprint and maintain its existing food and drink service in the updated space. Its all-day menu features breakfast bowls, toasts, baked goods, and more. It also has a happy hour menu. Purple Waves opened in February 2024 with a focus on limiting the amount of waste it produces. For example, it offers reusable cups for sale for takeaway drinks, instead of disposable cups. The new market section of the store is “designed with low-waste systems in mind, including reusable jars, a glass bottle deposit program, and other circular packaging solutions,” wrote Reuveni.
95 Omakase, a Japanese restaurant, has signage up at 722 Amsterdam Avenue (between West 95th and 96th streets). The restaurant is owned by Shihou Group, which runs four other Japanese omakase restaurants in the city. Omakase dining involves a multi-course meal of sushi, sashimi, and other small dishes served over a counter. Dark Bullet, a sake and oyster bar, was the previous tenant in this space.
Koo Thai opened on August 25th at 917 Columbus Avenue (at the southeast corner of West 105th Street.) Koo also has a location on the Upper East Side. The menu includes a wide range of curries, soups, and noodle, fried rice, and wok dishes, including Gra Prow Over Rice, Duck Kua Noodle, and Udon Crab Curry. It also includes duck salad, crab meat fried rice, pad see ew, along with Thai style milk tea, Thai pink milk, Thai soy milk, and Thai glass jelly. The restaurant is are open for lunch and dinner from 11:30 a.m. until 9:30 p.m., owner and chef Alexander Nittayarot told West Side Rag on a phone call. Nittayarot is from the northeast region of Thailand known as Esarn and learned to cook there. His first restaurant, Tum & Yum opened in the same space in 2013 and was subsequently taken over by another restaurant called Mekong, which combined Thai and Vietnamese food in 2018. “The owner of Mekong recently retired and I have now taken the restaurant back; I will incorporate it with my Upper East Side location,” Nittayarot told the Rag. “I feel excited to be back in the community, it feels like home to come back to the place where I started.” Koo means “be yourself” or “the mystery of Thai food,” Nittayarot said. He is learning about Vietnamese cuisine from both the previous owner of Mekong, and his husband who is Vietnamese. His goal is to add Vietnamese food to his Upper West Side menu. Koo Thai is offering a “soft opening 20 percent discount” if paying by cash until September 9th. (Thanks to K for the tip.)
ICYMI: Ayat, a Palestinian restaurant, is planning to open in Morningside Heights, near Columbia University. Ayat has six other locations in New York City and two in New Jersey, serving a range of shareable Palestinian staples including falafel, baba ghanoush, and the lamb dish mansaf. Columbia has been a hotbed of protests about the war in Gaza, but owner Abdul Elenani said that Ayat is about “bringing people together.” Other Ayat locations have hosted Shabbat dinners and she hopes to do the same at this restaurant. Seeing Jewish and Muslim guests sharing the Ayat space, Elenani said, “brings me peace and makes me happy.”
Elenani is hoping for a warm and open-minded reception from the public, but because Al Badawi, a Palestinian restaurant on the Upper East Side that Elenani co-owns, was broken into and vandalized in 2023, Elenani is withholding the address until construction is complete, likely by December. To read West Side Rag’s full coverage of the opening, click – HERE.
The Openings & Closings column wouldn’t be possible without our many tipsters: thank you! Anyone can send tips about openings and closings in the neighborhood to info@westsiderag.com.
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Blessings to Abdul Elenani for opening a restaurant that’s about “bringing people together.” I, a Jew, very much look forward to visiting Ayat and wish Abdul and his new restaurant the very best.
Ayat is not neutral at all. Their fish section is called “from the river to the sea.” Their instagram has a ton of political posts. The people welcome at that sabbath dinner were just the ones who agree with them. They have a right to open a restaurant and to have opinions, but let’s please not help spread their false claims of neutrality.
No such thing as neutrality during a genocide 🙂 I can’t wait to support Ayat
Read the linked article and the comments. If he was truly about staying neutral then I would be supportive. But he has included some politically charged statements on his menu and elsewhere, so as much as he is about “bringing people together” he is doing a lousy job of it. I will take my business elsewhere.
I am a Jew who would be happy to support a Palestinian business that is clear of propaganda and sticks to just serving food or whatever else its core competency is supposed to be. This one has failed this litmus test.
Excited to support this restaurant! I’ve been impressed with their community events and have heard the food is really good.
It’s a bold strategy, Cotton. Let’s see if it pays off for them.
Plus it’s a great place to bring your mistress.
Nice to see that the creepy smoke shop at 83-84 and Columbus is being replaced by something more neighborhood-friendly. Although I still miss the exemplary glazed eel at Matsu Sushi.
One has to wonder what’s behind the apparent boom in gluten-related disorders, judging from the proliferation of gluten-free products and emporia. And if rice is what’s substituting for wheat, one also has to wonder about the increase in arsenic consumption.
If you google, there is an old BBC article that explains that the method for removing about 80% of the arsenic is to not only wash the rice, but to cook it like pasta with about a 5-1 water-to-rice ratio. You need to strain it when it’s done, instead if boiling all the water out. (and sadly this means your fancy rice cooker is now relegated to making oatmeal). This is how they cook rice in India apparently and they should know. 🙂 The arsenic ends up in the discarded cooking water, not the rice. All grains have arsenic in them, but rice is grown with more water (arsenic is water-borne) so it has, on average, twice as much arsenic as other grains. Whole grain rice unfortunately has more arsenic than white/polished rice, because the husk soaks up more water. The good news is that if you use the BBC/Indian method, you should be totally fine.
Never underestimate the power of marketing and social media. A friend’s grandkid has celiac disease and becomes miserably sick if she eats gluten. Her friends, who presumably have healthy guts, are militantly gluten-free because they think it’s cool. Whatever. I’m glad people who really need to avoid gluten have delicious alternatives.
One has to wonder how Posh Pop charges $99 for a 6-inch cake while By The Way on Broadway charges $50.
I’m pretty sure all you need to remove arsenic below a relevant amount is to wash your rice. There’s plenty of studies showing that. But if you’re more into anecdotal evidence. There’s the fact that rice is consumed in vast quantities by more than half of the world without any issues.
I did not think washing helped because it is in the water table that’s absorbed into the grain – but I would love to be wrong about that. I hope I can find support for your statement!
As to the world eating it – that is because the arsenic comes from the ground in which the rice is grown. The ground in parts of the US has it. The ground in many other parts of the world does not. So the fact that people elsewhere can eat rice grown elsewhere has no bearing on whether people here (or elsewhere) can eat rice grown in the parts of the US where arsenic is an issue.
Where will the new Ayat location be?
sophie im being so serious right now, did you literally even read the article
I was asking about the precise block 🙂
Did you not read the article? It says ” in Morningside Heights near Columbia University.” Which block? That could be anywhere.
Tried KOO THAI Monday night, received 10% discount for first time customer. The crab fried rice is a must try!
I hear great things abut Ayat, can’t wait to try the new location!
Has the Rag reported that you can exit the Westside Highway at 79th St again? I had to go to Jersey this morning and when coming back Google was telling me to exit at 79th but I thought “the WSR has not told me it is open”
Then I saw a light up highwsy sign that said it was so I did not exit at 95th and 79th St was indeed open.
Moral: I may be too depemdant on the West Side Rag
Google-owned Waze told me just yesterday I could go northbound onto the WSH from 79th.
Nope!!
Moral of the story- avoid New Jersey.
Ayat owner needs to tone down his call for protests and disruption and mayhem. No one wants that in the neighborhood.