Famed EV eatery closes doors over landlord construction dispute

Life Café, the well-known East Village Eatery and 30-year tenant of 343 East 10th Street and Avenue B, has closed up shop until further notice due to a construction dispute between its two landlords, Bob Perl and Abraham Noy, the Villager reported.

The restaurant spans a space belonging to two separate landlords whose ongoing argument over the price of a work contract has prevented construction on the exterior of the building from starting, the Villager said. A protective sidewalk shed and scaffolding have shrouded the restaurant’s outdoor seating area for over a year now, but renovations still have not begun.

The scaffolding is “not a pleasant place to be sitting under” and it has had an “incredibly detrimental impact on business,” said Kathy Kirkpatrick, one of the original owners of Life Cafe. “You can’t See The Business From The Street… I don’t want to close, I want to continue on, [but] the landlords need to come to an agreement.”

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Perl declined to go into detail regarding the dispute.

“We’re in the process of trying to work this out,” he said. “Life Cafe is an iconic and great restaurant, and I’d love to see it be a part of the East Village for the next 30 years.”
[Villager]