50 Most Popular Restaurants That Won’t Reopen After the Pandemic

This popular nine-year-old Williamsburg restaurant, known for its oysters, its New Orleans-style dishes, and its James Beard Award-winning bar program, is apparently out of business. Though it has issued no official statement, its website and Instagram page have shut down, its Facebook page continues no posts, and its phone number is not in service. Maison Premier’s sister restaurant, Sauvage, also in Brooklyn, is apparently similarly closed. Both restaurants filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy a year ago but had continued operating until they were closed, theoretically temporarily, with the advent of the pandemic.

Blaming the inflexibility of his landlord, celebrated restaurateur Keith McNally announced on Instagram in late July that his French brasserie in downtown Manhattan’s Beekman Hotel, opened in 2016, is now out of business. McNally, who himself was hospitalized for COVID-19 in April but is now fully recovered, had earlier closed his 31-year-old SoHo bistro Lucky Strike due to the pandemic. On Instagram, McNally wrote that he looked forward to seeing his customers at one of his other New York City establishments — which include Balthazar, Pastis, and Minetta Tavern — “Or Debtor’s Prison – whichever comes first.”

Joining the ranks of other celebrity chefs who’ve been forced to permanently close restaurants around the nation — including the likes of Wolfgang Puck, José Andrés, Daniel Boulud, and David Chang — Thomas Keller has announced the demise of his TAK Room in the massive Hudson Yards development. The decision to close the super-pricey TAK Room as well as Keller’s more modest Bouchon Bakery in the same complex came, according to a statement on the restaurant’s Instagram page, “after painful deliberations amid a pandemic that has devastated the global economy and caused irreparable damage to our business and profession.”

Two former chefs at Thomas Keller’s acclaimed Per Se, Ann Redding and Matt Danzer, opened this small but very popular (and eventually Michelin-starred) Thai restaurant in Manhattan’s Nolita neighborhood in 2013. Now, a statement on the restaurant’s Instagram page says, “We’ve made the very difficult decision not to reopen Uncle Boon on the other side of the pandemic.” Eater called Redding and Danzer “some of the most exciting restaurateurs in NYC” on the basis of this place and their subsequently opened restaurants Uncle Boons Sister (which remains open for delivery and takeout) and Thai Diner (which will continue to deliver some favored Uncle Boons menu items).

Add this 24-year-old SoHo seafood restaurant to the list of establishments that had closed temporarily in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, but has now decided to make the closure permanent. “Aquagrill is not continuing to operate in light of the unsafe effects of the coronavirus on public dining out,” reads a statement on the restaurant website.