Non-Openings

Sarma Melngailis’s Raw-Food Juice Bar Is Toast

Photo: Melissa Hom

Today’s Observer profile of “raw-food queen” Sarma Melngailis reveals that she has pulled out of the raw-food, vegan juice stand she had planned to set up in Chelsea Market. Melngailis (who had a notorious falling-out with former boyfriend and partner in Pure Food and Wine Matthew Kenney and fully took over the restaurant from investor Jeffrey Chodorow last summer) says she was “steamrolled over” by an unnamed investor in the juice stand, which was to be a prototype for future expansion. She tells the Observer she “felt like I was being pushed into this role of bobble-head promoter.”

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Sarma Melngailis’s Raw-Food Juice Bar Is Toast