Popular East Village eatery Odessa Diner
set to serve last meal this weekend
BY TEQUILA MINSKY
Another East Village
restaurant is a victim of
the COVID-19 pandemic
after being relegated to serving
only takeout and delivery the last
few months — a business model
that proved unsustainable.
Longtime employee and manager
Dennis Vassilatos confi rmed
on Tuesday reports that Odessa
Diner on Avenue A is closing
because “we can’t exist at 25%
or 50% capacity or with outdoor
seating, so we’ve decided to ‘take
a little vacation.’” Sunday, July 19
is Odessa’s last day.
Vassilatos said that the restaurant
was having a wait and see
attitude about the future, his way
to placate the array of neighbors
bemoaning the restaurant’s
demise.
Odessa opened 26 years ago,
an offshoot of Odessa Bar that
was next door (it closed in 2013
after 33 years) and became a
24-hour neighborhood mainstay,
providing a place to go and sustenance
for locals day or night.
Longtime East Village resident
Nancy Cohen lives around the
corner and reminisces on how
much Odessa has been part of
her life.
“If I came in the morning, I’d
hunker down in a booth for hours
reading The New York Times.
When I fi rst started going I could
get the most amazing breakfast
special for $5,” she recounts,
acknowledging how that price
has obviously increased.
Odessa Restaurant, a 24-hour mainstay in the East Village for
decades, is closing shop this weekend.
g
Top of page four of a multi-page menu—the Ukrainian specials.
On very late nights at 2 or 3
a.m., it was her last stop before
going home. Cohen’s favorite: “I
really love their rice pudding with
lots of cinnamon and no whipped
cream.”
George de Castro Day remembers
at age 18, on his very fi rst
night living in New York, he
stopped at Odessa after a night
at CBGBs and ate his fi rst pierogi.
“There was a hybrid of people
who ate there from immigrants to
the guy with a Mohawk,” de Castro
Day said. “It was old fashioned
and felt like a small town diner
where you know the waitresses
while still being in New York.”
At one time, there were many
East Village diner restaurants
including Odessa serving Eastern
European Ukrainian staples
like pierogies, borscht, and potato
pancakes. Some years back,
Odessa’s menu expanded into
something more like a traditional
diner, but the Ukrainian
specials remain — listed on its
PHOTOS BY TEQUILA MINSKY
multi-page menu at the top of
page four.
On hearing of its impending
closure Tuesday afternoon, three
loyal neighborhood patrons made
a beeline to Odessa and ordered
at the curbside counter from the
“Specialty Sandwiches” section;
two chose the Patty Melt Deluxe,
while the other ordered the
Grilled Reuben.
By evening, the front glass
doors are closed and orders are
only taken by phone for pick-up.
At 2 a.m., Vassilatos juggled 18
orders to get out the door.
The East Village became home
to 60,000 Ukrainian emigrants at
its peak after World War II. The
Ukrainian Museum on East 6th
Street, an annual springtime festival,
and the National Ukrainian
Home and are among the vestiges
of the area that became known as
Little Ukraine.
While Odessa’s broadened
menu still offers a taste of Ukrainian
fare, two other popular restaurants
serving Ukrainian eats
closed in recent memory, Leshko
in 1999 and Kiev in 2008.
Just a few blocks away with
plenty of outdoor seating, Veselka
soldiers on, continuing to serve
those craving pierogi or potato
pancakes.
Three neighborhood loyals ponder what to order.
Schneps Media July 16, 2020 3