Actor Josh Lucas, known for his roles in “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Yellowstone,” is stepping up to help save a beloved Lower East Side French bistro that’s struggling to survive in a post-pandemic neighborhood.
Lucas, a partner at Henry and Jefferson Streets mainstay Les Enfants de Bohème for 10 years, made a plea to his more than 400,000 Instagram followers. this week Donate to GoFundMe for “an amazing French local favorite cafe that I love.”
Restaurant co-owner Stephane Jonot said he started the restaurant as a last resort after an increase in remote work kept many of his weekday lunch and dinner customers away, and inflation and New York’s soaring rents left fewer people willing to pay for good food.
“We didn’t know what impact it would have. [of COVID]Jonot told the Post: “PPP [Paycheck Protection Program] So I thought maybe this would help me, but I didn’t realize the aftermath.”
As the pandemic spread, Jonot said the area has seen an increase in homeless people, sometimes seen abusing drugs and fighting.
The lack of streetlights in the Jefferson Street area hasn’t eased his safety concerns: “If people don’t know where I am, they won’t walk by.”
The decline in customer traffic has hit Les Enfants so hard that the restaurant has stopped serving lunchtime meals.
Jono used to run a small independent late-night cafe next door called Les Enfants Délices, but it too fell victim to the pandemic.
Jono recalls a group of elderly regulars who would frequent Les Enfants almost daily before the pandemic. These days, they only stop by two or three times a week.
Two incidents involving water damage have further complicated operations for the restaurant, and as of Friday, a GoFundMe fundraiser had raised $3,900 of its $40,000 goal.
The bistro owner blamed a “domino effect” of rising energy and food prices for the collapse of many nearby establishments in the wake of the pandemic. Indeed, the French-born restaurateur said he is facing a 40% increase in electricity bills alone.
“Everything is getting more expensive,” he said. “But we’re trying to maintain [the] quality.”
Jono said that while he has increased menu prices here by a few dollars over time, he tries to keep the menu affordable compared to the newer, fancier establishments that have proliferated in recent years.
Menu items include the Bohemian burger and fries starting at $22, Atlantic mussels for $23, roast chicken for $25 and steak frites for $33.
“It’s hard to ask [for help]” said Jonot, who co-owns the restaurant with his wife, Cathy Lan Ho.
“For months I thought, ‘I can manage this,’ but this summer has been awful.”
The summer tourist season didn’t bring in the foot traffic Jonot had hoped for, and the Lower East Side, one of “Manhattan’s last villages,” according to the owner, has seen big changes for business owners since 2020.
“There are a lot of artists in this area, but they were forced to move out because the rent is too high,” Jonot said. “This is the second wave, and it’s basically all rich people. If you don’t have money, it’s really difficult.” [to live] In New York.”
A New York University study found that the Lower East Side and Chinatown have seen significant increases in affluence over the past two decades. Furman Center. The household income group that makes up the largest percentage of households in the neighborhood is those earning less than $20,000, and in 2022, that group is surpassed by those earning between $100,000 and $250,000.
Over the years, Jono said he has developed a deep sense of community involvement at Les Enfants de Bohème.
The restaurant has permission to close the street for events and also hosts a popular clothing swap on the first Saturday of every month. The restaurant has also hosted World Cup viewing parties, jazz shows, anniversary parties and other gatherings.
The owner said his neighbours sometimes leave their apartment keys at the store when they go out. Gothamist A 2020 profile noted that Jonot was even asked to water plants and pick up mail from locals who had left New York City.
While Jonot and his wife reached out to Lower East Side locals, community members held a fundraiser in 2020, raising more than $24,700 to pay employees and alleviate the bistro’s “mounting debt.”
Through his latest appeal for community support, Jono hopes to not only keep Les Enfants open, but also bring back lunchtime hours and reopen his coffee shop next door.
For Jonot, it’s a much-needed third space in a changing, “more corporate” area.
“There are fewer and fewer places that aren’t corporate-run,” the restaurateur said of the Lower East Side.
“There are fewer and fewer places where you can recognize your waiter or bartender. Here, you basically feel like you’re at home.”
