(Photo: Liv Buli for The Local East Village)
Might want to stock up on brie: the East Village Cheese shop is relocating by the end of July, a manager told Bedford + Bowery today.
After EV Grieve got word from a tipster that an expansion of the adjacent Duane Reade will push the shop out, we walked over to pick up some Manchego get the story.
“We’re not closing,” said a manager who declined to give his name. “We’re moving.” He added that the owners are “looking right now” for a new location.
Tony Dasilva, an account executive at the building’s management company, said he couldn’t confirm reports of Duane Reade’s expansion, “and as far as I’m aware, they are just rumors.” But the store manager we spoke to said a move was in the cards. (We haven’t yet heard back from Thupten Tenphel and Lobsang Tsultrim, the Tibetan monks turned cheese mongers who own the shop.)
At its current location for almost twenty years (it opened on East Ninth Street in 1972) East Village Cheese is the type of homey place where “for about $10 you can get a log of brie, some pate, a baguette and artichoke hearts,” according to Yelper Carson Y.
“This cheese grocery is just awesome,” wrote Yelper La G. “We should do [something] to keep it as it is being swallowed up by Duane Reade.”
The owner of Excel Custom Framing, next door to the Cheese Shop, told Gothamist that a “handshake deal” between the Duane Reade and its landlord meant that its lease would not be renewed. Which means it, too, is likely to be a casualty along with the already shuttered Project 36 clothing boutique and P&P Convenience store. Those of you who religiously juice at Organic Avenue, however, can breath a sigh of relief. The healthy grab-and-go food chain will remain in business, a staff member insisted to B+B today.
