Avenue B Won't Be Getting a Fully Licensed 3,000-Square-Foot Italian Restaurant

Avenue B rolls up the welcome mat.

Back in early January, we reported that a company called Beltrami Foods was planning to open an Italian restaurant in the long-abandoned storefront on the corner of Avenue B and East 2nd Street. Last night, the restaurant's owners appeared before Community Board 3 to apply for a liquor license, and found that the board wasn't in a giving mood.

As Eater reports, the board turned down the license application for the 3,000-square-foot restaurant, which would employ "an occasional DJ." The denial was in part inspired by the opposition of the restaurant's neighbors, who recently celebrated the closure of Le Souk.

Elsewhere in the neighborhood, Sigmund Pretzel was denied a beer license but Porchetta wasn't; the owners of Max will be opening a third location of the Italian restaurant, on East 2nd Street; Freemans will be expanding its business to the restaurant's currently unoccupied second floor; and Patrice Bihina, the owner of Boucarou, will be opening a new French restaurant called Lina Frey on East Houston Street.