BREAKING: Goodbye, Gotham.

After 40 years, and a $45,000 cyber-theft, Gotham closes for good.

Gotham Restaurant is gone for good. The legendary New York City restaurant, which first shuttered in March 2020, and then again this summer, is closing. And after 40 years, this time it is for good. 

Co-owners and wife-and-husband team Cassandra Csencsitz and Bret Csencsitz have been trying to find steady footing since the restaurant fell victim to a cyber-scam this summer in which it lost $45,000, causing it to file for Chapter 11 protection. The couple had intended for the closure to be temporary and only last through August. But today they announced that the pause would be permanent. 

“The restaurant could not claw back from the theft,” Cassandra told me of the cyber-attack, which was the result of an email that looked like it came from its payroll company on May 10. The business realized “within hours” that they’d been scammed and despite the involvement of the FBI, the money was never recovered. “The nefarious actor moved the money offshore and even though the bank recalled the wire it was strategically done on a Friday by the next Monday the money was offshore,” Bret said. 

Opened in 1984 on East 12th Street, Gotham earned a Michelin star in 2005 under founder and previous chef Alfred Portale and godfather of tall food. Portale was replaced by Victoria Blamey, the current chef of Blanca, in 2019; She landed a glowing three-star review from the New York Times. 

After Gotham closed in March 2020 due to COVID, Cassandra and Bret, who was the restaurant’s general manager since 2007, lovingly restored the restaurant, reopening in 2021, turning it into a family business with a trimmed down staff of just 60 (down from 100), and an updated name—trading “Bar and Grill” for “Restaurant.”

With longtime bartenders Billy and Eugenio back at the bar, Joseph at the door, and Lisette on reservations, they redesigned the interior with its original architect James Biber adding a cozy, windowed library and book nook off the bar. They filled the room with live jazz, DJ sessions, produced in-house literary events, and wrote a more neighborhood-friendly menu by chef Ron Paprocki, the restaurant’s former head pastry chef and the leader of Gotham Chocolates, the restaurant’s chocolate brand. 

“We never expected that Gotham would not work,” Cassandra told me this morning, her voice full of emotion. “Ours is a cautionary tale around the cyber-attack, but so many other factors that contributed to our not making it. This was our family business, we have two young kids, and we didn’t take a paycheck for years to keep it going. We operated very close to the bone. It is such a tough industry, and we learned a lot.” 

“The goal was to go back to our investors ro reopen this fall, and time just kept going by until it became clear we could not reopen this fall or for the holidays. It is over,” she said. But she is hopeful that one day Gotham Restaurant may open again, but in a different locale. “I feel like what we created is more than an address, but there is this very powerful love of place, and with this location, reopening is not going to happen.” 

To keep up with their 80,000 neighbors and friends in the Gotham community, they will continue to write their “Friends of Gotham” newsletter. “We will continue in some way, and since we can’t do that in our address, we will try to steer you to experiences that we believe in and a NY narrative we would love to stay a part of.” Sign up on the website.