Two Little Red Hens Announces New UES Bakery After 2-Year Closure

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — After a painfully long two-year wait, the beloved bakery Two Little Red Hens has finally found a new location in the neighborhood — and devoted customers won't need to go far to find it.

The bakery's new home will be at 1641 Second Ave., on the corner of East 85th Street — and right across the street from its former location. The news was first reported by the New York Post and confirmed by Adam Weinblatt, a real estate broker who represented landlord Maxx Properties.

"I’m equally as ecstatic for them to come back," said Weinblatt, who is himself an Upper East Sider.

Two Little Red Hens will likely open by early next year in the new space, which was formerly home to The Daisy restaurant, Weinblatt told Patch. With 1,850 square feet in ground-level space — plus a lower level of the same size — it will be far larger than the bakery's original location, which it had outgrown.

Famed for its Brooklyn Blackout Cakes, pecan pies, cupcakes and cheesecakes, Two Little Red Hens amassed a rabid following since its Yorkville location opened in 2002. (It joined an original location in Park Slope that has since become Ladybird Bakery.)

As the coronavirus swept New York City in March 2020, the bakery closed, citing safety concerns for staff. Months later, owners said the shop would reopen by 2021 after undergoing renovations.

By last spring, however, Two Little Red Hens revealed that would not reopen at all in its old location, saying renovations had been beset by unexpected delays — "and the solutions available to us would have made it too difficult to continue working efficiently in a space that we had already outgrown," management wrote in an Instagram post.

Over the years, numerous rankings described Two Little Red Hens as one of city's best purveyors of baked goods.

The bakery will pay $205 per square foot to occupy the new space, according to Weinblatt, a managing director at Newmark who brokered the deal along with Jason Pruger. Two Little Red Hens was represented by Stacey Kelz of Stacey-Robins Realty.

Owners had encountered "a ton of interest" from tenants for the corner storefront space, which is steps from the Second Avenue subway and near popular restaurants like Elio's. Ultimately, though, it was the bakery's vision that won out.

"We believed in the concept, we knew that the entire neighborhood was dying for them to come back, and they needed additional space," Weinblatt asid.

Meanwhile, work is progressing on the new business replacing Two Little Red Hens on the east side of Second Avenue: a bar by the owner of next-door butcher shop Schaller & Weber.

Owner Jeremy Schaller discussed the enterprise at a community board meeting last year, saying it would be designed in the "spirit of old Yorkville," paying tribute to bygone establishments like Elaine's while serving drinks named after the neighborhood's "historical components." It will be named Jeremy's.

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• 2 Little Red Hens Bakery Announces Move To New Location
• These New Restaurants Are Coming To The Upper East Side