MANHATTAN – The Upper East Side will have to say goodbye to yet another neighborhood favorite that managed to survive the pandemic, but is shutting down anyway– this time around it’s DTUT that will be closing forever.
On Tuesday night, while attorney Benjamin Korngut addressed Community Board 8’s Street Life committee seeking a liquor license recommendation for a new establishment, he revealed that DTUT would be shutting down after nearly a decade of serving Upper East Siders.
Korngut says DTUT’s owners have been unable to work out a lease extension agreement on its current space along Second Avenue between East 90th and 91st Streets in Yorkville.
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“DTUT is closing down due to the inability to extend the lease with the landlord,” Korngut told the committee Tuesday night.
“So [DTUT’s owners are] looking to open a new business when the same neighborhood,” the attorney added.
Whether you called it D-T-U-T, D-TUT or even Downtown-Uptown, the coffee shop-bar hybrid has been a popular neighborhood hangout for its comfortable ambiance, craft beers, Irving Farm coffee and of course its build-your-own s’mores that involved the server bringing a small fire to your table.
Cortney Bond, owner of the UES. ice cream parlor and speakeasy, called into the Community Board committee meeting voice her support for the new endeavor.
“Obviously it broke my heart to lose him as an immediate neighbor,” said Bond, who also mentioned her second UES lounge called Not A Speakeasy opens this week.
“But I’m going to say what I said to him, don’t sign any bullshit leases. We don’t work as hard as we do to not make any money and it breaks my heart, especially since they survived the pandemic.”
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It’s not clear at this point when DTUT will be closing— or when the new establishment, taking over the space that formerly hosted The East End Bar & Grill on First Avenue between East 86th and 87th Streets, will be opening.
One of DTUT’s owners, Barry Spellman, told Upper East Site in a statement, “a heart felt thank you to all our customers over that last nine years and looking forward to seeing some familiar faces at our new location.”
We’ll keep you posted as this transition develops.
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