Odessa Restaurant on Avenue A Closes this Week After 25 Years
Photo: Apple Maps
Odessa Restaurant, long a bastion of late night cheap eats and great conversation, is set to close for good later this week. Word is circulating on social media that the 24-hour Ukrainian diner ends its Alphabet City tenure on Sunday (July 19).
Here it stood for twenty-seven years.
Staff is starting to tell customers about the plans.
The original half of the Odessa empire at 117 Avenue A had closed back in 2013, the victim of an exorbitant rent hike. This regulars haunt served the community for forty-eight years after opening in 1965. The “new” diner half at 119 Avenue A, which debuted in April 1995, survived the 2013 closure next door.
But not coronavirus; now, the bell tolls. The first hint of struggle was back in April, at the outset of the mandatory lockdown. Longtime manager Dennis Vassilatos told EV Grieve at the time that: “Times are difficult, and uncertainty is part of our lives. People are afraid. I hope everything works out and we are all healthy,”
Odessa was once part of a cadre of likeminded eateries in the East Village that has since disappeared, including Leshkos and the Kiev.
At least there’s still Veselka…
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