Taza grill free#

“I’m going back to the Caribbean,” he said. It’s the embassy of Puerto Rican cuisine in the city.” But, at some point, you realize you're fighting a losing battle. Montalvo understands that people will be heartbroken to see La Taza go.

Taza grill free#

It has served mofongo and tostones to many a celebrity - Carlos Santana, Puff Daddy, Benicio del Toro, Madonna, Sandra Bernhard - among the crowd of everyday neighborhood regulars who were devoted to this warm and comforting place. TAZA GRILL LTD - Free company information from Companies House including registered office address, filing history, accounts, annual return, officers. Through the years, La Taza soldiered on, a thriving remnant of the days when Chelsea was filled with Latin restaurants and people. “The new generation,” Montalvo said, “they walk around with the Starbucks cups and the cell phones and…like this,” he turned up his nose and clutched his collar to mimic someone who acts superior, Starbucks cup in hand. Google took over the building across the street, and its employees, by and large, don’t want the Puerto Rican home cooking at La Taza. On top of all that, the neighborhood has changed dramatically in recent years. 'Small businesses are being pushed out,' said Montalvo. (We nearly lost the B&H Dairy for the same reason.)Įven when you own the building, as the Montalvo family does, it’s getting harder for small restaurants to stay afloat in this town, thanks to increasing bills and a punishing Health Department. The breaking point, however, came when the city made it impossible to stay open after the Second Avenue gas explosion this past spring caused city agencies to panic and tighten the rules, so that when a few bricks fell from the neighboring facade, Con Ed turned off the gas in the Montalvos' building and the Department of Buildings slapped them with an order to vacate. His children don’t want the restaurant they all have careers of their own. The bright yellow hand-painted menu signs had already been removed, but he put them back up, proudly, so I could photograph and admire them. Montalvo was mopping the floor, cleaning up the place and taking it apart. I went by the restaurant to find proprietor Eric Montalvo, husband of Maria and son-in-law of the man whose uncle originally opened the restaurant in 1947.

I will miss it.Ī tipster wrote in, ' They were looking forward to opening in January, and as of not that long ago were still going to open, but the city recently put additional financial burdens in the way that make it impossible for the small business to open back up.' Sadly, it's been confirmed, the beloved 68-year-old Puerto Rican luncheonette has closed for good. After nine months of sitting shuttered by the City, after hopeful rumors that they’d soon be reopening, Chelsea’s wonderful La Taza de Oro has called it a day.