East Village Says Goodbye To Angelica Kitchen After 40 Years

EAST VILLAGE, NY — Customers of Angelica Kitchen are opening their wallets and their Instagram accounts to bid farewell to the East Village mainstay, which is shutting down on Friday after 40 years.

The popular vegan restaurant is scheduled to close its doors after serving its last meal on Friday, and regular customers are headed to the restaurant in droves before the vegan eatery is gone for good. The restaurant opened in 1976, and this year announced it was closing because of operating costs and increased rent; Monica Gotz, a friend of the restaurant's owner, said the rent for the space at 300 E 12th St. was about $21,000 a month.

To say goodbye to Angelica, customers are raising money to help the owner, Leslie McEachern, pay off outstanding debts. The restaurant has been losing money for two years, according to the eatery's fundraiser page. The campaign had raised more than $10,000 as of Monday afternoon, but still falls short of the loft $245,000 goal.

"Angelica has reached this point in her history after operating at a loss for over two years and numerous efforts to increase revenue," McEachern wrote on the restaurant's website. "It would mean a great deal to me to close the doors with a clean slate, without leaving outstanding balances with Angelica's suppliers, farmers and service providers, some of whom have been with the restaurant since the beginning."

Gotz, who helped organize the fundraising campaign, said the restaurant's impending closure was emotional for many customers because Angelica was a community space as well as an eatery focused on healthy, sustainable eating.

"People are really really upset that it's closing because for them it's kind of this cornerstone of the community," Gotz said.

Gotz described her friend as a "rockstar" in the farm-to-table community, and said McEachern helped pioneer sustainable eating in the 1970s before it became a common selling point for restaurants.

In addition to the fundraiser, longtime patrons of Angelica are returning to 12th Street in droves before Friday, and are posting dozens of tributes to and memories of the restaurant on social media.

Lead image courtesy of Monica Gotz via GoFundMe.