Barboncino, a beloved Crown Heights pizzeria, is closing on Friday, two years after it was unionized and three years after it changed owners.
The announcement came on Feb. 7, when the pizzeria posted to Instagram that “because of rising economic strains, diminished sales and other industry-wide challenges, it is with great sadness that Barboncino must put out the oven-fire, and close the doors."
Some staff members of Barboncino, the first pizzeria in New York City to unionize in July 2023, said they got little word from the owners on why the business had to shut its doors. They hope their unionizing effort was not the cause.
“The main motivation at the beginning was getting hazard pay for the kitchen employees,” Andrea Lopez, a union member, server and bartender told BK Reader of the unionization push. “The restaurant never closed for a day during COVID and specifically the kitchen was basically risking their lives just to keep it open.”
Despite multiple requests for comment, Jesse Shapell, a co-owner of the pizzeria along with Emma Walton, said he would not "respond to conjecture and speculation," and referred to the social media post as an explanation for the store's closure.
Lopez said that Shapell and Walton brushed the workers off in meetings with union organizers. Lopez, who worked at Barboncino for four years prior to Shapell and Walton taking over the business in October of 2022, said many staff felt like they were treated as temporary gig workers.
"We have a vision for the restaurant in 10 years. Where will you be?'" the owners reportedly asked workers at a meeting in the fall of 2022.
To Lopez, this implied that the owners viewed the staff as transitory workers, even though the restaurant was a place where former coworkers were "constantly at the bar hanging out and is a gathering place for the neighborhood.”
Steve Bunting, who works in the kitchen, said the union protected him when he broke his shoulder while at work.
“Our union lawyer really stood up and thought to make sure that when I was healed properly and when there was available space for me on the schedule, I got it,” Bunting said. “I don't know that in a non-unionized kitchen that would've been the case.”
Staff members said that the relationship with the owners took a turn for the worse when Walton and Shappell brought in a new manager last spring, who often berated staff in front of customers with foul language.
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Shapell and Walton allegedly defended the behavior to staff: “Well, some people like her management style,” the owners said, according to Becca Young, a union member and server.
Young said she had an inclination that Barboncino was struggling financially due to lower sales, but called Shapell and Walton "a brick wall” who wouldn’t hear any of her suggestions to turn the business around.
On Feb. 5, the union lawyer notified staff that Barboncino would be closing.
“I cried for a while,” Lopez said. “It was really very devastating.”
Some commentators on Instagram accused the union of causing Barboncino’s closure. Young, however, said that the workers never got any benefits.
"The owners never spent any more money on the staff than they were going through otherwise. The only money that they spent on the union with the money that they spent on their lawyer, trying to fight us," she said.
Bunting said she remains heartbroken to lose "a place that means so much to so many people."