Hale and Hearty, a popular New York soup cafe for 20 years, quietly closed all of its stores “temporarily,” according to signs in the windows. The brand has, or had, 16 locations in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Long Island comprising tens of thousands of square feet of retail space in prime locations.
The shutdowns came without warning. The branch at 745 Seventh Ave. was ladling out soup as recently as two weeks ago.
But the unexplained shutterings went unreported until now. Ironically the stores also had signs that announced “We are hiring!”
No further information was immediately available. The Hale and Hearty website “Contact us” box did not work.
One Hale and Hearty branch at 111 Fulton St. was recently sued by major food vendor Chefs Warehouse for nearly $160,000 in unpaid invoices and by its landlord for $400,000 in unpaid rent.
But nothing was known about circumstances at other locations.
[Written in collaboration with other media outlets with information from the following sources]
