Maybe it was the location.
Whatever the reason, an ambitious vegetarian-vegan restaurant that opened across from the Criterion movie theater on Temple Street didn’t end up making it.
The restaurant, Red Lentil, closed last Saturday. It employed between eight and 10 people at any one time. (The Register’s Luther Turmelle first reported the closing.)
The owner and head chef, Pankaj Pradhan, opened the restaurant on July 12, 2011. It was an outpost of a successful restaurant he runs in Watertown, Mass. The menu was all vegetarian, with a heavy concentration on vegan food drawing on 40 international cuisines; with table service an extensive beer and wine menu. (Click on the play arrow to watch Pradhan, a native of India who mastered various cooking styles as a Carnival Cruise Lines chef, whip up a gluten-free vegan polenta in the New Haven kitchen.)
The restaurant was also tucked into a pedestrian dead zone, in the shadow of the hulking concrete Temple Street garage. Except for Kudeta, at the busy corner of Crown Street, restaurants have been opening and closing along that hidden block for years.
Pradhan said Thursday that he had originally banked on Yale students flocking to his restaurant the way Harvard kids support his Boston-area outlet. It turned out that many Yale students don’t generally venture past Crown Street.
UI crews tore up the street this summer right in front of Pradhan’s storefront. That hurt business, too he said.
Then Pradhan counted on a flood of new business when Gateway Community College opened its new campus around the corner. The flood never came. Instead, traffic back-ups and scarcer street parking hurt his business more, he theorized. “A lot of chaos went on because of that traffic.” New rules charging street parkers at meters from 7 to 9 p.m. didn’t help, he said.
“I was ready for the [slow New Haven] summer. I could take the loss. I was not ready for the fall and winter. I saw not much happening the last two months” and needed to stem the losses, Pradhan said. He estimated he lost $300,000 overall in New Haven.
Pradhan invited any New Havener missing his sumptuous vegan shepherd’s pie to stop by his still-humming Red Lentil the next time you’re near 600 Mount Auburn St. in Watertown, Mass.
Always a bummer to see a decent place close. I wonder what kind of place could succeed in this retail location? Fast food? Discount store?
It's such a weird location. You'd think it'd be easier but there's very little foot traffic right there. I'd be super curious to hear if anybody has any ideas.
Maybe just give up on retail and turn it into office space of some kind?