Crown Heights’ supply of slices will be getting a little flimsier at the end of February. Barboncino, a wood-fired favorite on Franklin Avenue—which managed to unionize all non-management employees in 2023—has announced it will be closing up shop for good at the end of the month.
According to Eater, the pizzeria will fire its final pies on February 28th, ending a 14-year-long stay along Franklin between St. Johns and Lincoln. In a statement released via Instagram (see below,) Jesse Shapell and Emma Walton, co-owners since 2022, cited the restaurant’s struggle to reclaim pre-pandemic sales and profitability. “We believed in Barboncino’s long-term potential, but because of rising economic strains, diminished sales, and other industry-wide challenges, it is with great sadness that Barboncino must put out the oven-fire, and close the doors,” wrote the owners.
Within a year of Shapell and Walton taking over Barboncino from its original owner, the 40 members of the pizzeria’s non-management staff formed Barboncino Workers United to advocate for higher wages and better work conditions, making it the city’s first pizza shop to unionize. Though it’s unclear whether the union’s demands were met in the years since it was founded, the BWU accused Shapell and Walton of being “absent owners that have repeatedly ignored our needs.”
“We are still processing this huge news, feeling a myriad of feelings. Barbs is such a special place to us, our customers and the community its cultivated over the last 14 years. Thank you to everyone who has supported BWUs efforts to both maintain that space we love and advocate for our rights/better working conditions,” the union wrote in their own statement.
BWU started a crowd-funding campaign to support the workers. You can donate via GoFundMe today.
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
The post Barboncino, NYC’s First Unionized Pizzeria, is Closing appeared first on BKMAG.
