Well, this sucks. It appears that Avenue C Cuban restaurant Cafecito is closing and another part of my formative NYC years is dead. A staffer confirmed to EV Grieve that the restaurant will shutter after service on Sunday evening. There's going to be a party for friends and fans at 9 p.m. on Sunday evening to send the restaurant off in style. Add it to the list.
As EV Grieve notes, the restaurant was badly damaged during Hurricane Sandy, covered in "over four feet of water in the building" and the restaurant remained closed for nearly a month. A source reported business hadn't been great and said the team didn't want to see the restaurant "dwindling into another solemn East Village story," which is the most depressing sentence ever uttered. Apparently there's someone already interested in the space. Ugh.
When I was a regular in late 2005 and 2006, the place was packed on a nightly basis, which usually led to a pitcher of their tasty white sangria while waiting for a table to open up. Dinner conversations with my then-boyfriend would often end with "Cubano at Cafecito?" without any argument from either side. It was even a destination during the blizzard of 2015, a beacon of light, warmth and belly-filling Pollo Cafecito in the storm.
Recently I went back after many years' absence and found everything in its right place. I wish I'd gone more often, feel guilty that I was perhaps part of the problem for not returning sooner and more often. Hug your darlings while you can.
