La Guli, the Astoria pastry shop that once baked cookies for two popes, has permanently closed after 89 years, one of more than two dozen New York City restaurants and bars that shut their doors in July alone.
Maria Notaro, the third-generation owner and head baker, posted on Facebook on Sunday, July 26, calling the closure "temporary" and citing "family matters." But the New York Post confirmed days later that La Guli, at 29-15 Ditmars Boulevard in Astoria, Queens, will not reopen. The shop had been in continuous operation since 1937. When Pope Francis visited New York in 2015, the bakery created a cookie in his honor. It later produced a shortbread edition for Pope Leo XIV, the latest American-born pontiff.
La Guli's closure was the most prominent name in a punishing July for New York's restaurant industry. Eater NY documented closures stretching from Astoria to Tribeca, from Williamsburg to the Upper West Side, bakeries, steakhouses, food halls, cocktail bars, and neighborhood pizza joints, many of them decades old. The reasons varied in the details but shared a common theme: rent hikes, rising operating costs, landlords selling buildings, and an environment where even well-reviewed establishments cannot keep the lights on.
Tootles & French, also on Ditmars Boulevard in Astoria, closed after just three years. USA Today had named it the Best New Restaurant in the United States in 2025. Owner Chad Goldsmith wrote in an email to subscribers that the personal cost had become too high.
"Something we have learned is the sacrifices that must be made in personal lives to sustain our concept and what makes it special can become too great."
That a nationally recognized restaurant could not survive in the same neighborhood where an 89-year-old bakery just folded tells you something about the math facing small operators in New York City right now.
Dan Kluger, the critically acclaimed chef who served as opening executive chef at ABC Kitchen, the Jean-Georges Vongerichten restaurant that won a James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant in 2011, shut down his own Greenwich Village spot, Loring Place, on Tuesday, July 14. The restaurant had run for nearly a decade.
"Rising costs have made this the necessary time to close this chapter."
Loring Place's team added: "While it's not the outcome we hoped for, we are so grateful for every year we have had." Gratitude does not pay the rent.
The closures are not limited to independent New York City kitchens. Across the country, national chains keep shrinking, caught in the same vise of rising costs and softer consumer spending.
Several July closures had nothing to do with the quality of the food. The buildings themselves were pulled out from under the operators. Urban Hawker, the Midtown Singaporean food hall that food critic K.F. Seetoh brought to life in 2022 after brainstorming the concept with the late Anthony Bourdain, closed Friday, July 17, after the building at 135 West 50th Street sold for redevelopment. The hall had opened with 15 stalls on two levels and launched Lady Wong, which Eater named its Best New Bakery in 2022.
In Tribeca, Nish Nush, a 12-year-old falafel restaurant owned by Eyal Hen, closed at 88 Reade Street to make way for a new nine-story residential building. Permitting plans had surfaced the prior April. Hen still operates 19 Cleveland in Nolita, but the Tribeca neighborhood lost a fixture.
Wasabi Japanese Restaurant, a 26-year mainstay in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, closed Monday, July 27. Owners Robby and Cristin Wijaya said the decision "was not a decision taken lightly." On a GoFundMe page, they explained they lost their lease "due to the landlord's desire to market the building" and pointed to "rising operating costs and a difficult business environment."
When landlords can flip a building into condos or jack up the rent, a restaurant that has served its neighborhood for a quarter-century has no leverage. The pattern repeats itself across the city, and across the broader restaurant industry, where even established brands are closing locations and shedding debt.
Cheesy Pizza on the Upper West Side, founded in 1985 by a young Italian immigrant and operating at its Broadway location since 1991, closed after more than 35 years. A tipster told West Side Rag that the owner said rent was set to double from $20,000 per month. If accurate, that would mean $40,000 a month, for a pizza shop.
Gino's Pizza on the Upper East Side closed after 34 years. Its downtown Brooklyn counterpart had already shut down in January after 40 years, also because of a rent hike. Two locations, 74 combined years, both gone because of landlord economics.
Redeye Grill, the 30-year-old Midtown institution facing Carnegie Hall, closed Sunday, July 12. The restaurant was home to an 88-foot mural by pop artist Red Grooms. Its founder, Shelly Fireman, died last fall at age 93. The New York Post reported the lease was up and the Fireman Hospitality Group, now led by CEO Ben Grossman and still operating 11 other restaurants, could not reach a new deal. In May, Steven Spielberg, Bryan Cranston, Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson, and Ethan Hawke had dined there for a Broadway afterparty. Weeks later, the doors closed for good.
Bar Camillo in Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn, opened weeks before the pandemic in 2020 and survived six years before closing Sunday, July 12. Its underground bar, Suono, shut down earlier in July. The owners' closing statement laid out the squeeze plainly:
"People go out less, drink less, order less. And at the same time, all of our costs have skyrocketed."
That is the restaurant economy in two sentences. Demand softens. Costs climb. The operator in the middle gets crushed. The owners said other projects are in the works, but Bar Camillo itself is gone.
The same dynamic is visible far beyond New York. Disneyland recently raised prices on nearly 300 menu items across its parks, reflecting the same cost pressures that are forcing independent operators to close outright.
Mesiba, the Israeli-inspired restaurant inside the Moxy hotel in Williamsburg, announced its closure this week. "After an unforgettable run, it's time for our Mesiba to come to an end," the restaurant said. Antica Pesa, Williamsburg's top-ranked Roman restaurant since 2012, also closed in July. Its farewell: "Ready to start a new journey without losing what brought us here. See you soon. Somewhere new."
The July toll cut across neighborhoods and cuisines. The Lambs Club, the Art Deco restaurant inside the Chatwal Hotel in Midtown, founded by celebrity chef Geoffrey Zakarian in 2010 and once a regular stop for Anna Wintour and Amal Clooney, closed Saturday, July 25. Zakarian had parted ways with the restaurant in 2021. Chef Jack Logue took over, running a pre-theater menu. London's The Wolseley has announced plans to move into the space next year, adding a hotel and speakeasy bar.
Clementine Bakery, a Bed-Stuy staple since 2012, closed this week with no public warning. A Reddit user identified as a secondhand source wrote that "employers messaged their employees with no warning, informing them they had just worked their last day." Employees who showed up for work discovered they no longer had jobs.
Sal Tang's, the Michelin Bib Gourmand restaurant in Cobble Hill conceived by Brooklyn restaurateur Sal Lamboglia and Nom Wah Tea Parlor's Wilson Tang, closed Saturday, August 1. "After much consideration, we have made the difficult decision to close Sal Tang's," the owners said. Tang also closed Cha Cha Tang, his Greenwich Village restaurant, the day before.
Other closures in July included Francis Kite Club in the East Village, which said it hopes to relocate; 1 Golden Pancake in Flushing, which cited "various factors"; Pickler in Midtown, which closed after 11 years and "more than a million sandwiches made", though the owners said the decision "was personal and not about the business"; Spice Thai's Lenox Hill location, gone after 15 years; Blue Light Speak Cheesy in Greenpoint, whose owner Andy Chetakian had moved to Los Angeles the prior year; West Side Steakhouse in Hell's Kitchen, which closed July 29 after years as a gathering spot for Fox News hosts and politicos; and Karachi Kabab Boiz, the Jackson Heights kebab cart-turned-storefront founded by three childhood friends from Karachi in 2023.
Even legacy chains with national name recognition have not been immune. If a brand with hundreds of locations cannot hold its flagship, a family bakery with one storefront and one oven never had a chance.
Add up the closures and the math is bleak. An 89-year-old bakery. A 35-year-old pizza shop. A 30-year-old steakhouse. A 26-year-old sushi bar. A nationally awarded restaurant that lasted three years. A food hall born from a conversation between a Singaporean food critic and Anthony Bourdain, wiped out when the building sold. Owners cite the same forces again and again: rent spikes, landlords selling, operating costs that outrun revenue, and customers who go out less and spend less when they do.
None of these closures happened because the food was bad. Most happened because the economics of running a small business in New York City, between the taxes, the regulations, the commercial rents, and the cost of everything from flour to labor, have become impossible for operators who do not own their buildings.
When the government makes it more expensive to operate, more expensive to hire, and more expensive to comply, and then landlords double the rent on top of it, the people who pay the price are the workers who lose their jobs, the owners who lose their savings, and the neighborhoods that lose the places that gave them character.