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Beloved dog cafe Boris & Horton had its last bark in Brooklyn
It’s been a busy few months for the Boris & Horton team. In February of this year, New York City’s first dog-friendly cafe chainlet—which has locations in Manhattan (at 195 Avenue A in the East Village) and Brooklyn (510 Driggs Ave in Williamsburg)—successfully fundraised $250,000 to keep the sweet concept open and running.
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However, it looks like even a quarter of a million wasn’t enough, as father-daughter owners Logan Mikhly and Coppy Holzman recently announced on social media that the year-old Brooklyn outpost would sadly be shuttering for real by the end of May. (The East Village original will, for now, continue to operate.)
“After much consideration and evaluation, we’ve made the difficult decision to close our Brooklyn location at the end of this month,” read the team’s closing announcement, which was posted to Instagram on Tuesday, May 21. “We know that many of you donated in the hopes of keeping Brooklyn open, and we are heartbroken to let you down. This was not a decision we made lightly. We tried partnering with other local businesses, hiring an events manager, adding more programming, and other ways to bring in foot traffic, but despite our best efforts, sales have just been too weak to support the store.”
While the owners acknowledged that they will “miss all of our regulars in Brooklyn and all of the amazing artists and brands that teamed up with us over the last year,” the closure of the Williamsburg cafe means that the Boris & Horton team can “devote all of our resources to keeping our East Village location healthy and sustainable.” Despite initially believing earlier this year that they’d also have to shut the Manhattan location, “we’re happy to share that the East Village store has been doing well lately, thanks in large part to the incredible support from all of you and the new initiatives we’ve rolled out,” Mikhly and Holzman added.
So while it is a shame that Brooklyn-based doggos will now have to go elsewhere for their pup cups, at least NYC won’t be fully missing Boris & Horton after all.
Did you know that there is a Levain Bakery cookie pickup window in Astoria?
Although it has been open since February of 2023, we just found out about a cookie pick-up window operated by the phenomenal Levain Bakery in Astoria and we must share it with the world.
Found adjacent to the company’s cookie commissary at 9-20 35th Avenue in Queens, the destination serves freshly made treats available for pick-up or delivery through third-party apps like DoorDash, UberEats and GrubHub.
There are seven cookies on the menu here: chocolate chip walnut, dark chocolate chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, dark chocolate peanut butter chip, two chip chocolate chip, vegan and gluten-free chocolate chip walnut and caramel coconut chocolate chip.
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Drink-wise, you can opt for regular milk, chocolate milk, bottled flat or sparkling water.
Just in case you need a touch of java with your sweet fix, though, you can also purchase Devocion coffee beans (an excellent choice) here and just head home to make yourself a nice cup.
While at it: grab one of the tote bags on sale—Levain Bakery is a quintessential New York business, after all, and walking around with one will obviously give you street cred.
Although the Astoria pick-up window is the only one of its kind in NYC, Levain Bakery, voted the most popular bakery in the U.S. just last year, operates a total of seven more traditional brick-and-mortar shops around the city, including the company’s original location on West 74th Street and a brand-new address in the Flatiron District at 2 West 18th Street by Fifth Avenue.
The bakery has come a long way, fully embodying the sort of trajectory that New York businesses have always hoped to achieve.
As fans of the now-iconic chain know, co-founders Pam Weekes and Connie McDonald started baking six-ounce cookies made with simple, high-quality ingredients as a post-race treat when they were training for triathlons. They began selling the dessert and, after noticing how quickly they would sell out, decided to open a small bread shop on West 74th Street in 1995. Fast-forward nearly three decades and here we are today, chatting about a dessert empire.