Help Bartavelle Pay Staff and Local Vendors

Dear community,

Bartavelle has always been a labor of love and a community space, and now we sadly need to ask for your help! It would take a true miracle to actually keep the doors open and continue what we’ve built these past twelve years, but we are currently focusing on meeting our most solemn and sacred obligations. First and foremost we need to make sure we can pay our staff for all the hours they are working this pay period. One payroll is approximately 30-35K. It’s conceivable that our sales this next week could make up the balance of what we’re currently lacking, but it’s not a sure bet. We are going to make sure they get paid no matter what, but we can’t actually afford it.

Secondly we need to make sure we can pay back all of our vendors, many of whom we’ve fallen into arrears with, to the tune of about 50k. This is deeply unfortunate because they are all fellow small businesses, farms, makers and fellow creative types who can’t afford to absorb this kind of loss. It was never our intention to fall behind like this - it literally all happened in the last 8 weeks of flagging business and, admittedly, our failure to make the drastic changes we’d need to to survive in a timely manner.

In the perhaps too-good-to-be-true event that we exceed this fundraising goal of 85k, we can start to take care of some of our outstanding loans and credit card debt, starting with the high interest ones and the downright predatory loan we have from Square, which comes out of each days sales and has contributed to our cash flow woes for the last year. We wouldn’t have needed to take it if the banks had given us more money, but alas.

Okay, I’m just going to put this out there, as we do believe that miracles can happen. If someone is interested in investing in the business in a big way, knowing full well that restaurants do not make money even if they’re run perfectly, we are open to conversations about how to keep the place going. There are a few scenarios that we could see working. That would of course be amazing, but we need to start by making sure we take care of our staff and our vendor partners and meet our core obligations.

Thank you all so much in advance, and allowing ourselves a modicum of hope against all the odds stacked against us,

Samuel and Suzanne

See instagram caption below for the full story:

With breaking hearts and boundless gratitude we have to let you know that, barring a miracle*, Bartavelle is going out of business, and very soon. After nearly twelve years of cortados and toscanas, our last day of service will be a week from tomorrow: Sunday, September 15th. We hope to see many of you here tomorrow and for our last week, both day and night.

We expect this may come as a big shock to many of you, but the fact is that even a seemingly busy restaurant is operating on razor thin margins and it’s gotten exponentially harder since the pandemic. The specifics are as harrowing as they are mundane - suffice it to say we’re not big fans of capitalism, and the feeling seems to be mutual.

Suzanne and I (Samuel) first want to acknowledge and thank our incredible team, both past and present. They are all so talented, smart, creative and emotionally invested in each other, our customers, and our broader community. They care more deeply than we even knew before sharing the news with them yesterday, and that’s saying a lot. If you have the means, please support them directly by coming in and tipping outrageously - 100% will go to the staff, front and back of house, distributed equally. If you are a restaurant owner / manager / other employer and are hiring, consider everyone to have our most glowing endorsement, and let us know so we can connect you!

To our dear regulars and to (almost) everyone who came through our doors, we are so grateful and will sorely miss seeing your faces. It has been a real honor to feed you, get to know you, see your kids grow tall enough to see over the counter, pet your dogs, and celebrate milestones in your lives. That’s what we’re going to miss the most, and what kept us going all these years.

*about that miracle . . . we haven’t entirely given up hope, and we could really use some help no matter what happens. We’re launching a gofundme, initially just to make sure we can make our last payroll and pay our vendors, all of whom are small local businesses and farms. It feels weird to ask for money for a closing business, but every cent will stay in the local community and makes a difference. We’re also open to the possibility that someone might want to buy in to the business or otherwise rescue us. Just putting it out there . . .

In the meantime, we hope to see you soon, and out in the world, supporting all the restaurants that continue to serve you with love and good food. If you can afford it, please go out and invest in your community.

Thank you all from the bottom of our hearts! This week is gonna be wild - please be gentle with us as we expect to be ironically busy and feeling all the feelings.

Love,

Samuel, Suzanne, Bartavelle, and the team