Red Lantern Bicycles To Close In Fort Greene

FORT GREENE, NY — Red Lantern Bicycles, the first-of-its-kind bike shop, café and bar, is closing next month after seven years in Fort Greene. The combination of rising rent and pressure from giant corporations is pushing the store out of its space at 345 Myrtle Ave. and owner Brian Gluck out of the bike business, Gluck told Patch.

The café will serve its last coffee and beer at the end of this month, and the bike shop will shut down for good Nov. 30, according to a note posted on the shop's window.

“The power shifted," Gluck, a 37-year-old Kensington resident who's lived in New York City for two decades, said in an interview. "It shifted from the small businesses and the community and the people to the land owners the property owners, and now they’re the ones dictating what the neighborhood, what the vibe is."

Red Lantern opened in July 2011 and became the city's only bike shop to offer coffee and craft beer alongside repair services. It specializes in "utilitarian" commuter bikes that "can withstand the abuse of this great city," according to its website. It's also hosted regular community events, such as movie nights and a bike tour of Brooklyn restaurants called Red Lantern Roll.

When the shop closes there will be six empty storefronts just on that block of Myrtle Avenue between Adelphi Street and Carlton Avenue. The loss of those other small businesses in recent years hurt foot traffic on the block, Gluck said.

The shop also took big hits when the CitiBike bike share service launched in 2013 and when a Starbucks opened two blocks away in 2015, Gluck said.

Gluck reworked and expanded his café menu two years ago to compete with Starbucks, but the coffee giant "just killed us," Gluck said. And CitiBike put a big dent in the shop's repair business, which is its "bread and butter," he said.

“Could I have predicted corporatizing bicycles with CitiBike? Absolutely not," Gluck said. "Seven-dollar Uber Pool rides on a rainy day? That didn’t exist" when Red Lantern first opened.

Gluck said he and his wife, Lena, decided to shut down for good after learning their $8,000 rent would rise nearly $500 if they renewed their lease in February. There was an offer to relocate a few blocks north to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Gluck said, but he turned it down.

Gluck owned another bike shop in nearby Prospect Heights before opening Red Lantern, but he said he doubts he'll go right back into the bike business. Toiling over his shop for the past seven years left him burned out and hurt his love for cycling, he said, so he's going to start looking for a new job for the first time in a decade.

But Gluck said he feels he achieved his goal of creating an inclusive space for bike lovers of all stripes.

"This was a place that people could come and dork out about bikes and talk to other people about bikes and have fun and be safe and relax in a warm environment," he told Patch.

(Lead image: Red Lantern Bicycles will close for good on Nov. 30. Photo by Noah Manskar)