Thursday, October 20th, 2011

Hard not to see this coming… Upper West Side restauranteur David Ruggerio, whose restaurant Sushi A-Go-Go was seized by the state last month for non-payment of taxes, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for two of his other neighborhood restaurants: Bomboloni and Jalapeno.

Of note, Ruggerio is also the owner of Lansky’s Old World Deli (not part of the bankruptcy filing… for now).

Eater has full details (via Crains, which requires a subscription).

Shortly after the Sushi A-Go-Go post went up last month, MUW reader @sirbeagle sent me this tweet:

@MyUpperWest Just FYI Sushi A-go-go, Bomboloni, Jalepeno and Lansky’s all owned by David Ruggerio. I hope they have diff. accountants!

Apparently they did not.

Meant to do a follow-post at the time, but one thing led to another and here we are five weeks later…  I actually took a screenshot of Mr. Ruggerio’s Facebook page on 9/15 (which I can’t find now) that listed him as the owner of Sushi A-Go-Go. At some point in the days following (after the “Seized” sign had gone up), that information was removed from his profile.

The whole thing sounds like a complete mess, and the final outcome it is far from clear at the moment. I don’t know much about Jalapeno, but Lanksy’s and Bomboloni have pretty solid followings in the neighborhood, so this is definitely news of note.

That Eater link includes a photo of the Sushi A-Go-Go window, which now contains the following message:

“Sushi’s owner David Ruggerio would like to thank all his loyal customers for twelve fabulous years! look out for Mr. Ruggerio’s new sushi restaurant — bigger & better!”

Filed under: Food & Drink, Going Out, Manhattan, New York City, News, NYC, Restaurants, Upper West Side, Upper West Side Blog, UWS 1 Comment »
Tags: 185 Columbus, 187 Columbus, 1900 Broadway, 235 Columbus, Bombolino, Chapter 11, Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, David Ruggerio, Jalapeno, Lansky's Old World Deli, New York City, NYC, Sushi A-Go-Go, Upper West Side, UWS