The Upper East Side's Newest Firsts Are Opening on First and York

On Monday, August 3, two things happened on the Upper East Side's eastern avenues, about twenty-eight blocks apart. At 346 East 92nd Street, at First Avenue, Goop Kitchen opened its first storefront where customers can walk in and order. That same night at 408 East 64th Street, between First and York, Bayon served its last dinner. Bayon was the Cambodian restaurant that had earned a Michelin Bib Gourmand.

One opening and one closing on the same day could pass for ordinary turnover. The rest of the summer showed a pattern. Between July and late September, the blocks east of Second Avenue attracted outside operators who used the corridor to try something new for their business. The few rooms that closed here were taken over quickly by new operators, and in at least one case the new owners include someone who had worked there for years.

Three Operators, Three Different Firsts

Each of these openings is a first of a different kind, and each one says something about why an operator would pick First or York over Madison or Lexington.

1. Goop Kitchen, 346 East 92nd Street. Gwyneth Paltrow's wellness takeout brand reached New York earlier this year with two delivery-first ghost kitchens, one in Midtown West and one in Williamsburg. The East 92nd Street shop is its third city location and the first one built for walk-in ordering and pickup. The menu is the same as at the other locations: the Chinese Chicken Salad, the Miso Salmon Bowl, the Falafel & Hummus Wrap and the Coco Chocolate Chip Cookies, all made without gluten, refined sugar, seed oils or preservatives. East Side Feed reports that chef Kim Floresca, who previously worked at Per Se, oversees the food. Time Out described the format as "arguably a better fit for the Upper East Side's steady stream of office workers, parents, and gym-goers."

2. Dän Bakery & Cafe, 1431 York Avenue, between East 75th and 76th Streets. Anar and Arman Kozhabayev, a husband-and-wife team, started the bakery in Morristown, New Jersey. Before York Avenue, Morristown was its only other location, which makes this its first shop in New York City. It moved into the former Julien Boulangerie space and had soft-opened by August 9. East Side Feed describes slow-fermented, small-batch baking that includes honey cake, Napoleon cake and beef samsa. Dän's own location page adds pelmeni, burek, and specialty teas such as Tashkent Tea. The shop is open 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and until 9 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.

3. Coffee Project New York, 1219 First Avenue, at East 66th Street. Chi Sum Ngai and Kaleena Teoh founded this independent roaster in 2015. It already had cafés in Chelsea, the East Village, FiDi, Hell's Kitchen, Tribeca and Fort Greene before it came to the Upper East Side. The new 700-square-foot café opened to the public on Sunday, September 20. It has a pour-over bar, and its rotating coffees include a natural-process coffee from Samir Estate in the Dominican Republic that is sold only at this location. The brand's signature drink, the "Project #1" deconstructed latte, serves the parts of a latte separately on a tray. The café is open 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends.

A brand testing walk-in service for the first time, a New Jersey bakery making its first move into the city, and a roaster putting an exclusive coffee in its newest café all chose the same few avenues. All three are bets on daily foot traffic: people stopping on the way to work, picking up lunch, buying a pastry on a weekend morning.

A Local Chef Placed His Own Bet Two Blocks Away

Not every new arrival came from outside the neighborhood. On Tuesday, August 18, La Collina opened at 1431 First Avenue, at East 74th Street. The chef is Adrian Kercuku, who is already known on the Upper East Side for da Adriano. East Side Feed describes La Collina as an Italian bar, restaurant and pizzeria. Dishes include bluefin tuna tartare with watermelon and basil, cocoa-nib pappardelle with braised beef, and a white pizza with stracciatella and truffle cream. It serves lunch and dinner daily. Weekend brunch runs 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., and the kitchen stays open until 10:30 p.m. every night.

When a chef with a following in the neighborhood picks the same strip as the out-of-town brands, the corridor's appeal is no longer limited to newcomers looking for a foothold. It also draws operators who know these blocks well.

The Closings Were Mostly Handoffs

The departures this summer looked less like a wave of empty storefronts and more like a series of handovers.

Bayon closed by choice. Its farewell post on Instagram said:

"the time has come for our chef/owner to retire"

The post noted 45 years in the city's restaurant community. The 45 years cover the careers of Minh and Mandy Truong, not the restaurant itself. The couple ran Royal Siam in Chelsea for about two decades. They then opened Angkor Cambodian Bistro at the same East 64th Street address in 2015 and closed it in 2020. After the storefront freed up, their landlord reached out to them, and Bayon opened in winter 2024 with fourteen tables. Michelin inspectors added it to the guide in November 2024, highlighting the fried chive dumplings and the nyoam rice noodles in red curry. The farewell post asked guests to keep supporting Cambodian-owned businesses and pointed them to Artara Coffee, Bong, Cambodian Now and Lula Mae.

Within about five weeks, the space had a new tenant. Bon Ga, a Korean restaurant, was open at 408 East 64th Street by September 11. Owner Jay Suk told What Now that the name means "original house" or "home." The menu he described includes spicy-glazed pork backbone served sizzling, soy-braised chicken with glass noodles, bulgogi, and Korean pancakes, including a truffle-potato version. The dining room has ten tables and a 26-seat covered patio in back.

At 1479 First Avenue, at East 77th Street, the handover kept more of the past. Spice belonged to a Thai brand that started in Manhattan in 1997. Patch describes the First Avenue restaurant's run at that address as roughly sixteen years. Patch reported that Spice's owners sold the business. One of the six owners of the new restaurant, Ob Uan, has worked with the operation since 2016, and the team presents Ob Uan as a continuation of Thai dining at the address. The menu is built around specific regions of Thailand. There is khao soy gai from the north and gaeng pu, a crab curry from the southern province of Surat Thani. Weekday lunch combinations start at $17. Ob Uan is open from 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and 5 to 9:30 p.m. on weekdays, and from 11:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. straight through on weekends.

Le Petit Parisien's closing was the smallest of the three. Eater lists Sunday, August 9 as the closing date for its café at 355 East 78th Street, between First and Second. That storefront had been a French bakery by day since 2022 and Supper Club by Le Petit Parisien in the evenings. The brand still has a location in the neighborhood: Eater reported that its Lenox Hill location and its East Village original remain open.

The Opening Still Behind Brown Paper

One long-awaited arrival, a block west of this corridor, has not opened yet. H Mart bought an 8,500-square-foot retail condo at 223 East 86th Street, between Second and Third Avenues, for $8.7 million in late 2022. In January 2023, Eater reported a target of that summer. In July this year, What Now reported a burst of construction activity at the site but said it had not confirmed an opening timeline with the company. On September 21, Upper East Site reported that the store's sign had gone up for the first time in more than three years, with brown paper still over the windows.

The contrast with the rest of this list is about timing. Goop Kitchen, Dän, Coffee Project, La Collina, Bon Ga and Ob Uan all went from announcement to opening within a single season. H Mart's sign took more than three years to appear.

Where the Fall Calendar Picks Up

The new places on the eastern avenues are close to the neighborhood's biggest fall dates, most of them within a short walk west or east.

The two Carl Schurz Park events on October 18 run at the same time. Dän Bakery on York at 76th is about a dozen blocks south of Gracie Oval, close enough to stop for honey cake on the way. Neue Galerie says its anniversary exhibition will fill the museum's entire landmark building. Café Sabarsky, the bookstore and the design shop have already returned to regular hours ahead of the November reopening.

A storefront changing hands can affect the buildings around it, and Sonal Patel follows those changes block by block across Lenox Hill and Yorkville. If you own on First or York and want to understand what this season's openings could mean for your building, schedule a confidential consultation.