Last month we reported that the windows at A New York Pizza Place were covered up, and commenter SMP gave us the bad news when we asked if anybody knew what was up:
They are closed. The last night was Saturday December 4th. The lease was up and business was down.
And now it’s official.
Signs posted on the windows say the space at 8310 Fifth Ave. N.E. is now for lease through Anas Properties, which is in the process of creating a Facebook page offering more information about the property.
The company is asking for $2,000 a month plus “triple net” fees for the 1,720-square-foot space, and it adds that the former owner of A New York Pizza Place is willing to sell the restaurant equipment that still is on the premises.
Anybody out there hoping to fulfill a lifelong dream of opening up a pizzeria? We can only hope, after the loss of Divine this summer and what appears to be at least a temporary if not permanent closure of La Bera Cafe. Why is Maple Leaf losing so many restaurants?
@Billie:
As a fellow small business owner and customer of your shop, I know exactly what you mean about the government having their hand out. All the talk about helping small businesses revolves around loans and any small business that has to operate by getting loan after loan is a bad business model. Forget the loans, if they cut things like payroll taxes and excise tax it would help a lot more.
I hope things pick up for your business and I will try to continue and support as many businesses in Maple Leaf as I can. That is if I can keep all the thieves that are running around our neighborhood at bay and out of my house and car.
While Maple Leaf is a fabulous neighborhood with really great residents and businesses alike, I’m not surprised to hear of these places and similar places closing up shop – it’s very difficult to support a small independent shop – especially food – in this economy. As an indie coffee house, we struggle daily to make the ends meet – we consistently try to offer great value for high quality. I believe we achieve this, however, if we can’t get people through the door in the first place, it’s difficult to see the numbers. For example for the last two weeks, we’ve seen such long stretches of “quiet/down time” that we’ve had to cut back on shifts and hours. This leads to staff looking for more work elsewhere. And still, in the end, good old government is still waiting with their hands out to take any income tax they can, sometimes effectively wiping out the business bank accounts. So while Maple Leaf continues to be a great place to live and work, all these hard-working middle class income families have to carefully pick and choose where they spend their money these days; unfortunately it can’t always be with the local, indie shops when it’s much cheaper to cook (and make coffee!) at home.
@DC Maple Leaf Life is well aware that La Bera Cafe is not in Maple Leaf, but it is just across the street from the boundaries that the Community Council uses. More importantly, to quite a few members of the Maple Leaf community, that is/was their closest cafe — regardless of whether you personally go there.
Sad to see the local restaurants go for reasons that usually can be prevented. As a resident of Maple Leaf and a partner at a small graphic design & branding firm, we’d be willing to help whoever decides to open shop in any of the vacant spots within our neighborhood.
La Bera is in the heart of the Northgate commercial area, and that is adjacent to, not in, Maple Leaf. This blog needs to develop a somewhat nuanced understanding of what constitutes a residential community and what constitutes a commercial wasteland, er, I mean development.
I never considered going to Le Bera for anything because I am not interested in mingling with Northgate area shoppers and passers-through, what with their pushy and impatient attitudes. Not to omit from mention it is an ugly, unpleasant, noisy area and not fun to walk to. Get the difference?
As for Divine and NY Pizza – expensive, and the quality wasn’t there for the money. And Divine could have expended a little effort to make the place look classier than the Reservoir Tavern. Just sayin. There’s nothing wrong with the Res but for costing 5x the money to eat there, Divine should have had, say, 5x more class.
Sincerely, Yer Local Curmudgeon
LC’s Kitchen on Lake City Way and about 14th has consistently good food, great prices and a friendly staff.
I still miss The Jones, but I’ll give the Alehouse a try. I did hear a rumor though that La Bera was going to become a pizza place. Please let it be Tuttla Bella!
It’s too bad to see these places go out of business. La Bera was ok, but the couple times I went there the service was super slow which I bet turned some people off.
The pizza place was good, but I really miss Divine. Those greek donuts were awesome!
On the bright side, one of the success stories in Maple Leaf has to be the Roosevelt Alehouse. It was dead when it was the Jones, but now it seems to have a consistent flow of customers. They have a great beer selection and above average bar food. The pork sandwich with a caesar has become a staple of mine.
This is unfortunate. My family liked that pizzeria, people were friendly and the food while not cheap it was tasty and well done.
I’d have eaten there very consistently had they offered slices.
But we added Little Caesar’s to Maple Leaf, home of the $5 Large Pizza—ANYTIME!
I think the shift in restaurants speaks both to the recent economy and the value of product the previous establishments were putting out. I never tried NY Pizza Place, but our one visit to Divine left my wife and I wishing we’d just gone somewhere else. Wasn’t sad or surprised to see it go.
Because the food is lousy and or overpriced.
Hence the success of the street vendors.