Did Choice Brooklyn just leave Lafayette Avenue?
That's the question that made the rounds after the cafe posted about a new outpost on the Upper West Side this spring. For a place that's been part of the Clinton Hill landscape since it opened as Choice Market back in 2005, the idea of it decamping for Manhattan felt like the kind of loss you brace for but never quite believe until you see the empty storefront. Except there isn't one. The original shop at 318 Lafayette Avenue never closed. It didn't even pause. What actually happened is closer to the opposite of a departure, and it says something about how this neighborhood's business turnover actually works that the closures-and-openings roundups tend to miss.
What The Instagram Post Actually Meant
Choice Brooklyn's new location sits at 2040 Broadway and West 70th Street, a spot chosen for its proximity to Lincoln Center and the theater crowd that passes through before curtain. The Brooklyn Eagle framed the move as another chapter in a story that's been running for nearly two decades, not a final one. The Upper West Side menu mirrors the original: house-baked pastries, espresso, made-to-order sandwiches and paninis, breakfast starting under five dollars. None of that changes what's happening back on Lafayette Avenue, where the same counter has been serving the same neighborhood since before most of Clinton Hill's newer arrivals had leases.
If you've been avoiding the cafe because you assumed it was winding down, it isn't. If anything, a business old enough to fund an expansion into Manhattan is a business that's doing fine at home.
Growth, Not Departure, Is The Actual Pattern
Choice Brooklyn isn't the only name proving this out this year. Dinner Party, the restaurant that opened in Fort Greene in 2021 and quickly became a go-to for communal tables and rotating prix fixe menus, moved into a much larger Clinton Hill space that roughly triples its old capacity. The bigger footprint made room for happy hours, an à la carte menu, and reservations that don't require booking three weeks out, on top of the four-course tasting menu that still changes every couple of weeks and runs $65 to $80 depending on the night.
Read the two stories side by side and a pattern shows up that the average "what's new, what's closed" list doesn't surface. An established Clinton Hill name can change address or add a location without leaving the neighborhood behind.
Where The Actual New Names Landed
The newer arrivals opened at their own locations, adding to the neighborhood's business mix.
- Athena Keke's opened at 222 Greene Avenue after nearly three years of pop-up watch parties around the borough. It's the first queer women's sports bar in Clinton Hill, built by co-founders Claudia Capriles and Alexandra Murray around a concept they call the anti-sports bar sports bar: Bolivian-inspired food, a wall of women's sports memorabilia, and bathrooms with disco decor instead of the usual dim-lit taps-and-screens formula.
- Porta Coffee opened this past June at 596 Washington Avenue, a small espresso counter with room enough to sit and read that fills a gap the neighborhood didn't have a name for yet rather than one it lost.
- Mariscos El Submarino, the Mexican seafood spot that started in Jackson Heights and had already expanded into Greenpoint, opened its Clinton Hill location last fall and later added a backyard. A Park Slope outpost was announced earlier this year as well.
The three openings span different blocks and categories from the businesses that recently shut down nearby.
The Closures In The Neighborhood's Changing Business Mix
The two closures locals are still mentioning, Moo Burger after 15 years and Mekelburg's original Clinton Hill location, are another part of the neighborhood's changing business mix.
| What changed | When | What it was |
|---|---|---|
| Mekelburg's (original location) | About a year before its Williamsburg outpost also closed | Specialty grocery known for babka, bread, sandwiches |
| Moo Burger | Closed this year after 15 years in business | Neighborhood burger spot |
| Athena Keke's | Opened in 2025 | Women's sports bar |
| Porta Coffee | Opened June 2026 | Espresso counter |
| Mariscos El Submarino | Opened fall 2025 | Mexican seafood |
Line them up and the mismatch is obvious. A grocery store and a burger spot closed while a sports bar, a coffee counter, and a seafood restaurant opened elsewhere in the neighborhood. If you've been waiting for something to move into the old Moo Burger or Mekelburg's spaces, the openings elsewhere don't answer what will happen there. The neighborhood isn't cycling through a tenant list. It's adding categories it didn't have while losing others.
The One Saturday That Doesn't Care Either Way
None of this touches the parts of Clinton Hill that were never for sale to begin with. On Saturday, September 19, the free Touch A Truck event takes over Clinton Avenue between Myrtle and Willoughby from 10am to 2pm, put on by the Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership. Fire trucks, ambulances, buses, and city vehicles line the closed street, kids get to sit in the driver's seat and lean on the horn, and the full vehicle list usually goes up closer to the date. It's the kind of event that happens whether Choice Brooklyn has an Upper West Side outpost or not.
The same goes for the Pratt Institute Sculpture Park, tucked into the center of campus and open to anyone who wants to walk through it. It's been part of Clinton Hill's daily texture regardless of what's opening or closing two blocks over, and it will still be there next month.
The Quiet Read
The version of this story that travels fastest online is the tidy one: something closes, something else moves in, the neighborhood changes shape. What's actually happening in Clinton Hill this fall is messier and, if you live here, more reassuring. The oldest names aren't fleeing, they're expanding. The newer arrivals add to the neighborhood's business mix, while the closures mark losses of their own. And those closures are another part of the neighborhood's changing business mix. If your read on the neighborhood came from a single Instagram post or a headline about Manhattan, it's worth checking the actual timeline before you decide anything's really changed on Lafayette Avenue.
Whether you're weighing what a shifting commercial strip means for a future purchase in the neighborhood or just want a second opinion on what's actually happening block by block, The Scott / Robles Team tracks Clinton Hill closely enough to tell the difference between a business growing and one leaving. If you're further along and thinking about co-ops or condos in the area, their first-time buyer's guide to Clinton Hill is a good next stop. For everything else, reach out and start the conversation.
