Coming Soon: Rag & Bone at 73 East Houston

Cafe Colonial closed its doors for good on May 25 after sixteen years residing at the corner of Elizabeth and East Houston.  Less than one week later, the obscuring brown paper made its grand appearance in the cornershop windows.  A new establishment is currently in the works, and it’s surely not food, but a boutique shop after all.

Friday afternoon, we came across a trio of handymen on lunch break outside 73 East Houston.  The gut renovation visible at their backs was an obvious giveaway that something drastically different was happening.  We were told that the Rag & Bone boutique shop is allegedly opening an outpost here, and that Friday was in fact Day 1 of work.  July 1 is reportedly the tentative target date for opening.  It will mark the third downtown location for the company, with representation in SoHo and the West Village. Our guess is Rag & Bone uses the 276 Elizabeth address instead of the East Houston one.

The unknown here, however, is whether the new proprietors stroll across the street to meet Billy LeRoy at his antique shop.  Or will it be another McNally-style snub?