Yahoo Lifestyle This Iconic Restaurant Just Permanently Closed Its Doors—Here's What's Happening
It's a tough reality to swallow with when your favorite restaurant decides to close its doors for good. Such is the case for fans of the iconic New York City fine-dining establishment, Gotham Restaurant, located in Manhattan’s cozy West Village neighborhood. Known for serving standout American dishes in a stylish and relaxing setting, Gotham’s sudden closure comes at the tail end of its 40-year tenure that has unfortunately left its parent company in a mountain of tax debt.
A quick visit to the homepage of the restaurant's website reads, "Gotham at 12 East 12 Street is permanently closed. We thank you for an extraordinary 40 years. Enjoy this site for sense memories of a place you loved."
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Gotham Restaurants, LLC filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this past July, and according to the filing, the restaurant currently owes upwards of $484,000 to the New York State Department of Taxation Finance Bankruptcy/Special Procedures Section. The company has apparently accumulated additional debt with credit card and utility companies, as well as some of its food suppliers too. Nearly $84,000 is reported to be owed to Baldor Specialty Foods and almost $97,000 owed to Dairyland respectively, as was reported by Nation’s Restaurant News.
After news of the bankruptcy hit the web earlier this year, Gotham Restaurant, formerly known as Gotham Bar and Grill temporarily closed its doors to customers. A pre-recorded message played on the restaurant's phone line saying that Gotham had “decided to take June and July of this summer to make a few improvements, and we are discontinuing dinner and lunch services until August.”
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To make matters even fishier, the parent company filed for bankruptcy a month after Gotham temporarily closed, citing in part a “cyber scam” that ended in a loss of $45,000. These financial setbacks are not just exclusive to this year, however. Gotham previously shut down for 18 months during the pandemic and reopened their doors in November of 2021 under entirely new management, sporting its new “Gotham Restaurant” name.
In August of this year, the bankruptcy court trustee filed documents to convert the Chapter 11 bankruptcy into a Chapter 7 liquidation, according to Restaurant Business Magazine. According to the bankruptcy court trustee, Gotham’s owners failed to meet deadlines for filing financial documents, deeming the restaurant as seemingly “unable to reorganize.”
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Gotham’s closure is just another notch in a string of restaurant closures plaguing NYC as of recently. And while co-owner Cassandra Csencsitz told Andrea Strong, author of The Strong Buzz Substack, that Gotham’s immediate goal was to reopen this past fall, she noted that it quickly “became clear” that their goal would not be met. She did, however, express hopes of a future reopening set in a different location. Until then, fans of the 1984-born American eatery will have to find another way to fill the void left by this once-iconic establishment.
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