East Village Ice Cream Fixture Mikey Likes It Is Closing

• Thai takeout counter Little Grenjai eyes a Bed-Stuy restaurant
• The Laut team plans an uptown kebab spot
• Dekalb Market is desperate for more mom-and-pop restaurants

The exterior of Mikey Likes It in July 2021.

Mikey Likes It, an East Village ice cream staple open since 2013, is closing on Avenue A, EV Grieve reports. “We were just not able to recover fast enough and come to terms with our current landlord,” owner Michael “Mikey” Cole shared in an Instagram post. He hinted that the closure was part of a wider reorganization of the company “to expand our products and services to the global market.” Cole, who is known for creative flavors like the Southern Hospitality with hunks of pecan pie, which caught the attention of celebrities like Jay-Z, is already plotting his comeback with a flagship opening in spring 2023, according to the post.

Thai takeout counter Little Grenjai eyes a Bed-Stuy restaurant

Thai takeout joint Little Grenjai is set to close in Downtown Brooklyn on November 12. In place of it, co-owners Sutathip Aiemsaard and Trevor Lombaer, are gearing up to open their first sit-down restaurant in Bed-Stuy. The team tells Eater the new location, which will be a self-service luncheonette serving their Thai cooking, is set to open at 477 Gates Avenue, near Marcy Avenue, by May 2023.

The Laut team plans an uptown kebab spot

Salil Mehta, the restaurateur behind South East Asian restaurants and bars like Laut, Laut Singapura, Wau, and Singlish, has a new kebab spot in the works. According to a spokesperson, Kebab aur Sharab will highlight Indian street food in a 75-person dining room. The new spot is set to debut in early December 2022, at 247 West 72nd Street, between Broadway and West End Avenue.

Dekalb Market is desperate for more mom-and-pop restaurants

The food hall which first opened in the basement of City Point mall in 2017, has struggled to sustain vendors throughout the pandemic. Anna Castellani, a CEO of the operation team behind the market, tells Brownstoner that her team is “more concerned about great food than I am about fame or their credit rating.” Over the course of the pandemic, vendors like the plantain-focused Kelewele opened and then closed in less than a year. Newcomers like Thai American fast food spot Baby’s Buns & Buckets have since opened inside the market.