An iconic New York institution – Union Square’s Coffee Shop – which rose to fame after appearing on HBO’s “Sex and the City,” is closing its doors after nearly 30 years.
“We’ve had a great run — 28 years and honestly it was a combination of factors that altogether caused us to just not be able to continue the operation,” Coffee Shop co-owner Charles Milite told FOX Business’ Charles Payne on Friday.
Ironically, even though the business ranked in the top 100 grossing restaurants in the United States for 20 years, it is going out of business because it can’t afford the rising rent, which most other New York City restaurants also have to endure.
“Our rent at $2 million a year is pretty staggering,” he said. “And although our revenues are well, if you were to walk by the restaurant, go into the restaurant, you’d think it was a busy, bustling, hustling place.”
Worse, Milite said that the burden of high-priced rent taking its toll, as efforts to force businesses to adopt higher minimum wages are backfiring, something we discussed most recently in April.
“It’s a tough one for us because we understand that our employees have to live in the most expensive city in the country,” he said. “But we have a business to run and unfortunately the economies of a restaurant are such that your payroll is your largest expense and if you can’t control it you have problems with the bottom line.”
And while most of his employees already earn between $18 and $20 hourly, he said more restaurants will turn to technology to help replace some of the lost revenue.
Never quite known for its food, the Coffee Shop has nonetheless become a cultural sensation, appearing regularly on HBO’s Sex and the City. It has been a bad year for restaurants frequented by Carrie Bradshaw and friends: Sushisamba also closed in January.
Former Wilhelmina models Charles Milite, Eric Petterson, and Carolyn Benitez opened Coffee Shop in 1990, and it quickly became a fashion destination. There was even a long-standing rumor that the restaurant only hired aspiring models as servers. When the restaurant closed for just a few days in 2007 due to DOH violations, then-pregnant actress Naomi Watts, was one of the first customers who showed up for its reopening, the Post notes. For those less fashion-inclined, the restaurant’s location near a major transit hub and park made it a frequent destination for New Yorkers and tourists — who could easily meet in Manhattan right near the massive sign.
As for the impending closure, Milite cites rising rents and costs of doing business. “The times have changed in our industry,” Milite told the Post. “The rents are very high and now the minimum wage is going up and we have a huge number of employees.” The Post also reports that Milite is breaking the news to the restaurant’s 150 employees today.
The Coffee Shop will shutter on October 11. The biggest irony: New York Democratic socialist sensation, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, lamented the closing of an iconic New York City coffee shop that she used to work at even though its closure it largely due to policies she supports.
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