Business

Po Restaurant Closes In The West Village After 24 Years

Po, the popular Italian restaurant in the West Village, closed this week after 24 years.

WEST VILLAGE, NY — Po, the long-time West Village restaurant co-founded by Mario Batali in 1993, closed its doors on Wednesday.

The popular Italian restaurant on Cornelia Street was known for good food and reasonable prices. Batali, now a Food Network celebrity, started the restaurant with Stephen Crane, who remained on Cornelia Street after Batali left to open another restaurant. (For more news from the West Village and the rest of New York City, subscribe to Patch news alerts here.)

Crane said that he decided to close Po after 24 years because the space’s rent had more than doubled.

“The neighborhood’s really upset,” Crane told Patch on Friday. “Once Po is closing because they can’t afford the rents at all, that’s not good.”

Crane added that the popular neighborhood eatery hadn’t seen a dip in sales, and that its patrons remained as loyal as ever.

“My business was fine but it just wasn’t making me money,” he said. “When my rent goes up, that’s my income. It became to the point where I was making less than the dishwasher.”

Crane said that his $10,000 a month rent had been increased by 120 percent by his landlord. S. W. Management, the company that owns the property, did not immediately respond to an email from Patch.

Along with Crane, his staff of about two dozen people, some of whom have worked at Po for 20 years, will lose their jobs.

Po’s closure is another in a string of neighborhood standbys who say they’ve been forced out of the community because of ever-rising rents. Home, another Village favorite, has closed, and Crane predicted that other beloved eateries in the area could be next.

“The Village is turning into a ghost town,” Crane said. “All the restaurants are closing because the rents are just too high. “

Batali left Po to open the nearby Babbo in 1998.

“I hate to hear when good restaurants close,” Batali said in an email to Eater NY, which first reported the news of Po’s closing. “It’s a sign of the times when costs are going up, labor laws are increasingly challenging already small margins, consumers are confused by tipping policy ambiguity, and many restaurateurs have very little profit left to cut into to remain sustainable. I’m betting that 15 to 20 percent of all freestanding restos in NYC will close in the next two years.”

Lead image via Ciara McCarthy/Patch.

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