Vegan Pizza Bar Double Zero Closes for Good After 12 Years on 2nd Ave

Double Zero, the plant-based pizza and wine bar that has anchored the corner of 65 Second Avenue at Fourth Street for 12 years, has closed for good, according to EV Grieve and Hoodline, which reported the closure in early September. The restaurant’s own farewell message pointed to rent, rising costs and a broader slowdown in vegan dining, and both outlets reported that occupancy costs at the address had tripled since Double Zero’s 2016 debut there. City property records show the building itself never changed hands during that stretch.

Why it matters

Double Zero’s exit follows a familiar East Village pattern this year, joining other long-tenured food and beverage tenants that outlets have reported losing their spaces to cost pressure rather than a sale or a new landlord’s repositioning plan, the way an Upper West Side building sale recently forced out a 32-year-old bar (see our coverage). Here the record shows something different: NYC Department of Finance rolls list the same individual owner, on 63-65 Second Avenue continuously, and ACRIS carries no deed transferring the property since its condo units were declared decades ago. For developers and landlords watching Manhattan avenue retail, that distinction matters. A tenant squeezed out under an unchanged owner points to rising operating costs, insurance and rent resets under an existing lease, not a buyer flipping the asset for a new use.

The numbers

The building at 63-65 Second Avenue is a six-story, 1926 elevator building with 42 residential units and three commercial units, carrying 7,571 square feet of ground-floor commercial and retail area, per NYC’s MapPLUTO dataset. Its taxable assessed value, the figure driving the property tax bill, was $1,681,020 for tax year 2023 and is tentatively set at $1,471,050 for 2027, a decline of about 12.5%, even as the city’s own market-value estimate swung between roughly $3.9 million and $4.5 million over the same years. That trend cuts against a “costs tripled” reading if occupancy costs mean property tax alone, so the tripling the restaurant described most likely reflects base rent or insurance under its lease, not the city’s own assessment.

What’s next

Neither EV Grieve nor Hoodline reported a signed replacement tenant for the storefront, and this is not Double Zero’s first exit from the address: the concept folded into a merged “PlantMade” space with sister restaurant Bar Verde in 2025 before chef Matthew Kenney relaunched Double Zero under its own name next door in May 2026, citing strong demand. With ownership unchanged, whatever landlord decision follows will be a lease decision, not a sale, on a stretch of New York’s East Village that has already lost several other long-running restaurants this year.