This year has been filled with numerous restaurant closures—and sadly, another iconic establishment was just added to the list. Gotham Restaurant, the legendary New York City restaurant known for eye-catching dishes, has shut its doors for good.
“Gotham at 12 East 12 Street is permanently closed. We thank you for an extraordinary 40 years. Enjoy this site for sense memories of a place you loved,” the homepage of the restaurant’s website reads.
Gotham’s decision to close down follows several years of financial struggles. The parent company, Gotham Restaurants, LLC, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July. According to the filing, the restaurant owes nearly $484,000 to the New York State Department of Taxation Finance Bankruptcy/Special Procedures Section.
Gotham also has tens of thousands of dollars in debt owed to suppliers, in addition to owing money to credit card and utility companies and other service providers, as reported by Nation’s Restaurant News.
The parent company filed for bankruptcy about a month after Gotham temporarily closed, due in part to a cyberscam that resulted in a loss of $45,000. According to a pre-recorded phone message that played when calling the restaurant, Gotham discontinued dinner and lunch services in June and July of this summer “to make a few improvements.” This wasn’t the first time the restaurant has closed its doors, though.
Gotham previously shut down for 18 months during the pandemic. It reopened in November 2021, but this time, with new owners, a new menu, a redesigned interior, and a new name, changing “Gotham Bar & Grill” to “Gotham Restaurant.”
Then, in August, the bankruptcy court trustee filed documents to convert the Chapter 11 bankruptcy into a Chapter 7 liquidation or dismiss the case, according to Restaurant Business Magazine. The bankruptcy court trustee said Gotham’s owners hadn’t met deadlines for filing financial documents and seemed “unable to reorganize.”
However, the restaurant wasn’t successful in locating funding. Court documents stated there was “no viable business to rehabilitate,” and the court dismissed the case in October.
Co-owner Cassandra Csencsitz told Andrea Strong, author of The Strong Buzz Substack, that Gotham’s goal was to go back to its investors to reopen this fall. While Csencsitz said it “became clear” that the restaurant couldn’t open this fall or for the holidays, she’s hopeful that Gotham could open again in a different location.
According to Strong, Cassandra and her co-owner and husband, Bret Csencsitz, will continue to write their “Friends of Gotham” newsletter to stay connected to the Gotham community.
Gotham opened its doors in 1984 and hired chef Alfred Portale in 1985. The chef is famous for popularizing “tall food,” which features ingredients stacked on top of one another. In 2019, Victoria Blamey replaced Portale, and in 2021, former pastry chef, Rob Paprocki became Gotham’s executive chef.