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Cafe Pick Me Up Closing This Weekend After 20 Years in Business

By Lisha Arino | May 27, 2015 10:46am
 Cafe Pick Me Up, which has been in business at 145 Avenue A since 1995, will downsize due to a rent hike, according to a manager.
Cafe Pick Me Up, which has been in business at 145 Avenue A since 1995, will downsize due to a rent hike, according to a manager.
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Facebook/Cafe Pick Me Up

EAST VILLAGE — Café Pick Me Up will close for good this weekend after 20 years in business, the shop announced on Facebook.

The Avenue A coffee shop will close at 10 p.m. on May 31, according to a Facebook post Tuesday afternoon. The next day its owners will start a week-long auction of  “the historical content in the café,” it added.

“It has been such a beautiful experience and pleasure to serve this neighborhood and our friends for so many years,” the "Café Pick Me Up Team" wrote on Facebook.

The online post called the end of Café Pick Me a “forced closure” but did not elaborate.

According to co-owner Gian Luca Giovanetti, the landlord wanted to raise the coffee shop's $6,000-a-month rent to $15,000. The increase, plus property taxes — which totaled to about $30,000 last year — made it "unaffordable" to run the business, he said.

"It's a big number," he said. Factoring in the new rent, the owners estimated it would cost about $25,000 to run Cafe Pick Me Up from the corner space as well as the smaller, adjacent retail unit located in a different building with a separate lease.

Joseph Goldsmith, an attorney for Icon Realty, which represents the landlord, disputed the cafe owners' claims, saying that there was no rent hike or forced closure.

 A sign announcing Cafe Pick Me Up's closure and relocation on May 27, 2015.
A sign announcing Cafe Pick Me Up's closure and relocation on May 27, 2015.
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DNAinfo/Lisha Arino

"It was their decision to leave, not Icon's," he said. The owners had been having difficulty paying their existing rent, he said, and decided to close the longtime coffee shop.

Giovanetti said the owners began withholding rent last year after they experienced several sewer backups that caused flooding. They refused to pay until the landlord fixed the issue, he said.

Icon Realty took the owners to court late last year over nonpayment, Goldsmith and Giovenetti said. The case was settled in March after the owners agreed to pay part of their withheld rent, Giovenetti said.

Icon Realty is currently asking $15,000 a month for the space, which has about 600 square feet on the ground floor and about 724 square feet in the basement, according to its website.

Giovenetti said the owners had not decided what to do with the smaller, narrower space at 147 Ave. A.

Café Pick Me Up will move its operations to GNOCCO, at 337 E. 10th St., the owners announced on Facebook.

“We know this won’t be able to replace the memories and location of the original Café Pick Me Up," the coffee shop's owners wrote online, "but we think this will at least partially fill the vacuum of a chapter that lasted so many years.”

The new operation will open June 3 with free coffee from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., according to the Facebook post.