Wall Street Kosher Cafe Hopes To Survive OWS

Image by Courtesy of Milk Street Cafe
Despite another week of Wall Street protests that have dramatically cut into his business, the owner of one of the area’s largest kosher eateries is sounding a tentative note of optimism. “It’s almost Shabbos, and I feel good,” Marc Epstein, the owner of Milk Street Café, told the Jew and the Carrot this morning. “I think we’ve seen the bottom, and things are looking up.”
Epstein’s comments came after what he described as a “devastating” two months for his business, which opened in lower Manhattan in late June and saw sales drop sharply with the start of the Occupy Wall Street movement eight weeks ago. The restaurant received a wave of media attention at the start of November, following Epstein’s reluctant decision to lay off about a quarter of his restaurant’s staff of roughly 100.
“What I think we are going through now is I hope just the last pangs of pain before the birth of a healthy baby,” Epstein said of the most recent week of turbulence, which saw New York City police clear protestors from Zuccotti Park and make 240 arrests during clashes on Thursday.
At its worst, the installation of police barricades in the area cost his business $5,000 per day, Epstein said, speaking by phone from Boston, where he’s preparing to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the original Milk Street Café location next week. To make up for the losses, he’s accelerated work on the New York branch’s corporate catering business, which he said had only partly compensated for the loss of in-person sales on Wall Street.
Epstein expressed gratitude to the NYPD for preventing serious violence during the demonstrations, and said his landlord, Donald Trump, had been “absolutely wonderful,” going so far as to call New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg on his behalf. He said he hoped the protests would become a “legitimate point of view within our regular political spectrum, as opposed to a physical expression of civil disobedience in lower Manhattan,” but criticized the movement for causing what he sees as unnecessary hardship for local businesses.
Fears that he’ll be forced to shut down the restaurant have receded since the start of the month, he said, but they haven’t gone away completely.
“That is, unfortunately, still a danger,” Epstein said. “I’m trying to do whatever I can to not close. The fact that my landlord has expressed such strong support gives me strength, but I still have a long way to go before that threat is gone. If Occupy Wall Street remains, then nothing can help any of us.”
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
- 2
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 3
Fast Forward The invitation said, ‘No Jews.’ The response from campus officials, at least, was real.
- 4
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
In Case You Missed It
-
Film & TV In ‘The Rehearsal,’ Nathan Fielder fights the removal of his Holocaust fashion episode
-
Fast Forward AJC, USC Shoah Foundation announce partnership to document antisemitism since World War II
-
Yiddish יצחק באַשעװיסעס מיינונגען וועגן די אַמעריקאַנער ייִדןIsaac Bashevis’ opinion of American Jews
אין זײַנע „פֿאָרווערטס“־אַרטיקלען האָט ער קריטיקירט זייער צוגאַנג צום חורבן און צו ייִדישקײט.
-
Culture In a Haredi Jerusalem neighborhood, doctors’ visits are free, but the wait may cost you
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.