Salt & Bone at 32-07 30th Ave. (NYC ZoLa)
Oct. 24, 2018 By Tara Law
Salt & Bone, the Astoria barbecue restaurant, permanently closed over weekend after just one year in business, but will continue to sell its foods through a recently-launched delivery service in the area.
The smokehouse, which was located at 32-07 30th Ave., specialized in Texas-style barbecue, offering hefty platters loaded with meat and sides. It was brought about by the same team behind Bareburger, the popular burger chain with locations in Queens and throughout the city.
It is unclear why the restaurant, despite receiving praise in just its first year of business, closed.
Fans of the restaurant, however, can continue to purchase Salt & Bone food through a new delivering and catering-only concept, Bare Bone Weekend, brought by the Bareburger Restaurant Group.
The “delivery-only restaurant”, which is based out of a kitchen in Long Island City, will also feature Bareburger items and vegan food from vegan comfort food Chef Rudy Ramos’ 7 Day Weekend.
Salt & Bone took to Instagram this weekend to thank customers and to let them know about the new concept, which launched last month.
“To our loyal, meat loving, bone cleaning, carnivore family. THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!!” the caption reads. “Things may be changing, but we’ll always be here for your slow smoked cravings. Find us delivering thoughout [sic] Long Island City through our new concept: Bare Bone Weekend. We love you.”
Bareburger CEO Euripides Pelekanos said in a statement that that his company decided to launch Barebone Weekend because they noticed increased demand for both vegan food and delivery.
“Over the last ten years, we’ve seen takeout and delivery become 50% of the restaurant business, we wanted to focus on higher quality delivery which focuses on faster delivery, hotter food and greater consistency.”
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28 Comments
Looks like the Bareburger people have given up on this space. A big poster is in several of the windows as of this morning saying “Retail Space Available”, which means the current owners aren’t planning to try another restaurant in the space. What happens next may be interesting – maybe not even another restaurant!
Can we please just get an authentic Korean Bbq like Jongro or something similar in Astoria already? Way too many Japanese places, but not a single authentic Korean BBQ. Any Koreans reading this…please make it happen.
Why do they have to be korean to make this happen?
Does anyone remember when this was a pizza place back in the 70s?
The tiny bar in the corner with 5 stools, no bartender and a service bar feel made it a loser. And the service was never good. The bar should have been in the main restaurant with a real bartender. Watch bar rescue salt and bone. By the way, does Amy one these days seek salt in their food? Last time we tried it, they weren’t going to seat us then asked if we would order quickly. Then took 20 minutes to take our order. Forget how long it took to get a drink. Food was just so so.
I live in upper ditmars and they delivered to me… or is that the new delivery service’s border?
I went to Salt and Bone twice….both times when I ordered brisket, they gave me smaller cuts than what I asked for. Walked right up to the counter, asked them to weigh it, and it was always off on the lower end. Don’t care how good your bbq is, they treat their customers like crap.
Another failed concept from the Bareburger team.
Bareburger isn’t good either – their food is awfully overrated. Fortunately for them, they struck oil just as hipster food trends were taking off. But they lied about their organic claims and how they have marketed their business and menu. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/13/dining/organic-label-restaurants-bareburger.html
Their website claims that their products are locally sourced, hormone and antibiotic free but give no indication of who their sourcing partners are.
None of the places in the former Athens Cafe space have been any good. These guys are desperate to catch lightning in a bottle again, but it won’t happen.
Their delivery people were huge Sysco semi trucks! Laughable.
And where do you think the smaller suppliers get their provisions from? Answer is, from the same places. Smaller doesn’t make them better. The larger companies actually follow a good safety protocol the smaller guys would only dream of having and implementing. Yes, I was once a Foodservice Rep (won’t name the company) and I know what’s going on…
They were only successful with their friends, and one shot only customers. They were rude, their social media was disgusting. (Suggesting on Mother’s day that all moms could get one of their “long” hahaha sausages….) A n d the food was as inconsistent as Burnside whatever was. They are opening a delivery place because their customer service sucks and they are a bunch of immature clowns, and they were hemorrhaging money. They think their problem is the poorly trained servers smoking weed behind the restaurant? Good luck! They opened and FAILED TWO restaurants in three years! Pathetic . And tone deaf to the needs of the neighborhood they served. This venture will fail too, and one day soon so will shitburger! Good riddance !
Hey, how are those three restaurants you started? OH WAIT!!!!!
Better than the brown wizard and his Greek owner that lost money on two failed establishments.
Perfect spot for Starbucks
Wait until hourly wages go to $15 an hour in NYC on jan 1! Dozens more stores will be closing! The economy cant support $15 an hour!
People who make $15 an hour will put much more money back into the local economy than those who barely exist on the present minimum wage. May take a little while to catch up, but the living wage ultimately benefits everyone.
Many who make under $15 should’ve paid attention in school and either gone to trade, college or specialized training and secure a good career for themselves.
Now thanks to the Lib-tards; every disruptive drop-out, unqualified, untalented, uneducated and irresponsible will be able to work flipping burgers, licking windows, standing at a parking lot for half a day for a full day of work! Making everything more expensive for zero benefit.
El- I guess people need to be kept down for losers like you to feel better about yourselves. If you’re listening to slob Limbaugh you’re not any higher on the food chain than the lowest link. Your knowledge of economics and politics is non existent. Go back to your drug addicted gas bag of a slob for your next barking order.
Sad but true. Big restaurant chains can probably absorb the increase but the mom & pap restaurants definitely can’t.
A lot of small mom/pop restaurants are already suffering with rising rents. This will just add fuel to the fire.
You mean the greed of the store owner’s can’t support 15/hr. I hope the ones that don’t pay close down, greedy bastards!
JT-Please explain your position. It’s a capitalistic market economy money must flow through it for it to be strong and vibrant. Do you believe slave wages would have kept this place open?
Should have left Burnside Biscuits!!!
First MP Taverna and now Salt & Bone. Restaurants will never fully recover when the Health Department shuts them down.
MP Taverna went from amazing to atrocious in 2 year time-span. The restaurant quality went down, prices went up, and suddenly it was empty. Then you started seeing tacky advertisements on their windows for meal specials and a couple months later closed down for health violations. It wasn’t a failed concept, it was a great place that turned into a terrible restaurant. There’s too much competition in Astoria for bad ownership.
It’s a crying shame they don’t deliver north of Astoria Blvd.
Bring back Athens cafe!
This is the second quick close. Can’t we not worry about how big the profit margin is, and rather, that people were making money and everyone was enjoying themselves? So disappointed.