NYC: Bye Bye Balducci's

Gotham's foodies are crying in their $40/lb goat cheese over the news that both of NYC's fancy-schmancy Balducci's are closing.

Balducci's, the storied high-end grocery chain that first opened in Greenwich Village 63 years ago, is closing its two Manhattan locations at the end of the month. Balducci's is probably best remembered by New Yorkers for its store on Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village, which operated from 1972 to 2003. After the Greenwich Village store shuttered, Balducci's only Manhattan location for a while was on West 66th Street near Lincoln Center. That store will close, as will what is now Balducci's Manhattan flagship, a 17,000-square-foot store that opened in 2005 in a former bank at Eighth Avenue and 14th Street in Chelsea.

What will appear next in that gorgeous Chelsea building? I think it was a carpet store before it was Balducci's.