Modern Bread & Bagel, which took the space in the former Duane Street Hotel in early 2025, just said in an email that it is closed indefinitely.

UPDATE! The co-founder and CEO of Modern, Joshua Borenstein, wrote to say the customer service folks who replied to me were mistaken.

“The emails you received from our customer service representative did not paint an accurate picture of where things stand at the moment,” he said. “We are taking steps to get the Tribeca store open as soon as possible. Sonder closing unexpectedly made things difficult, and we are still working through some challenges with the landlord, the city, and the new tenant. All that said, we look forward to serving the Tribeca community and hope to open before Labor Day.”

This was the original note from last week:

“There have been issues getting things off the ground in that particular space, and while I’m not sure what the owners’ next steps are I do know that opening the store is not in the works at the moment,” a spokesperson said. “We are disappointed as well but hopefully we will have a closer location in the future!”

I have checked in with them monthly for a year — the place has looked ready to go for ages. But this confirms many suspicions around the neighborhood.

Modern’s products are all gluten free and the shop on 14th (I have a son who has celiac disease so we shuffle up there whenever we can). There is also an UWS location and one in California.

The Duane Street Hotel closed in May 2021; when the hotel closed, so did Jehangir Mehta’s restaurant Graffiti Earth, which he originally opened in 2013 as Mehtaphor. Sonder took the hotel over a few months later and now that entire chain has folded.

I have a post up now about the hotel now being run by OYO Rooms, but G. just sent a listing: the hotel is for sale. More on that soon.