After years of drama, dispute, lawsuits and bankruptcy, celebrity chef Chloe Coscarelli has made her triumphant return to a brick-and-mortar space at 185 Bleecker St. in Greenwich Village, the location of her original vegan chain restaurant By Chloe, which opened there in 2015.
“Nine years ago I opened my first restaurant on this same corner, and unfortunately I picked the wrong partner and it was taken from me,” Coscarelli said in a Zoom interview on Tuesday. “Now I’m so happy I have the opportunity to return to Bleecker and MacDougal [streets] and reopen on my terms.”
A line of well-wishers stretched to the door on Tuesday after the restaurant’s noon opening. Coscarelli beamed while hugging new customers and old regulars who couldn’t contain their excitement.
A line of people at the new vegan restaurant, Chloe, on July 16, 2024, for its opening day
Ryan Kailath for Gothamist
Stacy De-Lin, a doctor who lives in Brooklyn, was among the group of longtime fans there to support Coscarelli.
“I used to love this restaurant and I was so sad when it got taken over by the other organization,” De-Lin said. “When I saw that she was reopening I was just unbelievably excited.”
Like De-Lin, East Village web engineer Levi Villarreal made a point of stopping by on the very first day.
“By Chloe was one of the first restaurants I went to when I moved to New York,” Villarreal said. “And I moved from Texas, where, as a vegan in Texas, there’s not a ton of options.”
Coscarelli, a Food Network “Cupcake Wars” winner and author of several cookbooks, founded her namesake vegan restaurant in 2015 to rave reviews from food blogs and the New York Times.
Coscarelli said that she’s working with the same team of chefs that launched the original By Chloe with her in 2015.
Photo by Sarah Van Leifde
By Chloe soon expanded to multiple locations across the country — yet without its founder.
Coscarelli declined through her publicist to discuss the intricacies of her yearslong saga, but details were widely reported and closely followed among a subset of her fans.
According to court documents filed by Coscarelli, disputes arose after the restaurant took outside funding from private equity interests, including Bain Capital.
Coscarelli first sued her partners in 2016, claiming that they were “improperly seizing control,” according to the Wall Street Journal. In a complaint filed in May 2021, she alleged that investors in her company had forced her out while profiting off of her name, though she claimed to have revoked their right to license it.
The new vegan restaurant Chloe opened Tuesday in the same location once occupied by the original By Chloe.
Photo by Ryan Kailath / Gothamist
Coscarelli was in fact forced out of the business in 2017 through binding legal arbitration, and the restaurant group continued to operate under the By Chloe name without her.
The parties settled in 2022. By then, the investors had rebranded the chain as Beatnic, which still has a location in South Street Seaport.
Coscarelli said the menu at Chloe would be updated constantly with a focus on seasonality and that she’s working with the same team of chefs who launched the original By Chloe with her in 2015.
Despite the saga of the original restaurant, she said, expanding Chloe to multiple locations is definitely the dream once again.
“My goal is always to just make delicious vegan food as accessible as possible to as many people as possible,” said Coscarelli.