The pastry case at 1247 Third Avenue, between East 71st and East 72nd Streets, has been filled by three different bakeries since February. The bakery name on the door changed twice, and each time the space was quickly put back to work selling pastries and coffee.
The same thing has happened at several Lenox Hill corners in 2026. A long-running restaurant or a familiar bakery closes, and the business that replaces it is usually the same kind of place with a new name. Bakery spaces have stayed bakeries. A Thai corner has stayed Thai. One dining room on East 64th Street kept its tables, its patio and its hours, and the only thing that changed was the cuisine.
Here is what moved in at each corner, starting with the one that changed hands the most.
Third Avenue at 72nd: three bakeries in five months
The changes began in early February, when Julien Boulangerie closed all four of its shops at once. That included the original Park Slope bakery and three on the Upper East Side. East Side Feed reported that the closure was confirmed in a February 4 Instagram post. Its calls to all four shops found the numbers disconnected or out of service. Our Town covered the closures later that month. Two of those Upper East Side spaces are in or near Lenox Hill, at 1247 Third Avenue and 1431 York Avenue.
The Third Avenue space filled fast, emptied fast, and then filled again.
| Date in 2026 | What happened at 1247 Third Avenue |
|---|---|
| Early February | Julien Boulangerie closes all locations |
| February 28 | Le Fournil, the French boulangerie from the East Village, opens its second Manhattan shop here |
| By April 17 | Le Fournil closes the Upper East Side shop |
| July 1 | San Babila Cafe opens |
Le Fournil's time here was short. East Side Feed reported in April that the owners had closed both of their new locations, on the Upper East Side and in Park Slope, "due to circumstances outside of our control." They are now focused on the original shop at 115 Second Avenue. Their message ended with a hopeful "for now," which suggests they may expand again someday. If you got hooked on their bread in the spring, the East Village shop is the one still open.
Some older write-ups still list Le Fournil at this address. San Babila Cafe is the current tenant. Eater NY reported that it opened Wednesday, July 1, as the bakery and cafe offshoot of San Babila, the Italian restaurant that came to the neighborhood in 2025. The menu includes pastries, gelato, "Italian froyo," and a croissant shaped into a cone and filled with gelato. Founder Gianmarco "Gianni" Di Michele is also behind Papi at Moxy Times Square and Pan D'oro in Bryant Park. East Side Feed covered the opening the next day, and San Babila's own cafe page lists 1247 Third Avenue as its address.
In five months, the corner went from a French boulangerie to another French boulangerie to an Italian cafe. The owners and the pastries changed, but it has always been a place to get pastry and coffee.
York Avenue at 76th: a bakery that arrived with its own fans
Julien's other Lenox Hill space, at 1431 York Avenue between East 75th and 76th Streets, also went to a bakery. Unlike Third Avenue, this one had a following before it opened.
Patch reported on June 5 that Dän Bakery & Cafe from Morristown, New Jersey, was coming to the former Julien space. The early estimate was an early July opening, depending on permits and the remaining buildout. It ran later than that. Eater NY's August roundup listed it as a Manhattan opening that month, known for honey cakes and coffee drinks like a creamy strawberry matcha. By August 9, East Side Feed reported that it had soft-opened.
Dän calls itself a European-style bakery built on slow fermentation and small-batch baking. Its Morristown menu centers on honey cake, napoleon and tiramisu, along with croissants and savory samsa. The name comes from the Kazakh word for "seed," which the owners tie to the long ferment behind many of their pastries. Dän's New York location page has the York Avenue address.
So both of the Lenox Hill spaces Julien left behind are bakeries again. Neither stayed empty for long.
East 64th Street: the same room with a different menu
Chef Minh Truong and his wife Mandy have cooked Cambodian food at 408 East 64th Street, between First and York Avenues, for most of the past decade. Eater NY reported that they opened Angkor Cambodian Bistro there in 2015, closed it at the start of the pandemic in 2020, and came back to the same space in 2024 with Bayon. Within its first two years, Bayon earned a Michelin Bib Gourmand. It closed on Monday, August 3, when the chef retired after 45 years in the restaurant business, which included decades running a Thai restaurant in Chelsea.
The next tenant, Bon Ga, a Korean restaurant, went before a Community Board 8 committee in early September and won the committee's support for its beer and wine license application. Patch reported that the plan includes 10 tables inside, 26 seats on an open-air backyard patio that closes at 10 p.m., and hours of 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day. James Lee, a representative for the restaurant, said the plans largely continue the previous setup. As Patch quoted him:
"We're not changing anything other than the type of food that's being served from Cambodian to a Korean cuisine."
Bon Ga was open in time for The Infatuation to review it on September 17. The menu is Korean comfort food, including bulgogi and seafood pancakes. If you spent summer evenings on Bayon's backyard patio, you'll find the same outdoor seats with Korean food on the table.
First Avenue at 77th: the Thai corner is still Thai
At 1479 First Avenue, at East 77th Street, Spice closed in mid-July after 15 years at the location, according to Eater NY. Its menu ran to curries, fried rice and noodles. At the time, it was unclear what would replace it.
By late September, East Side Feed reported that Ob Uan had opened there, also serving Thai food. Ob Uan cooks from family recipes from the north, northeast, center and south of Thailand, and its specials are each tied to a specific province. Some of the regional dishes on the menu:
- Khao soy gai, $25: curry noodles with chicken, pickled mustard greens and crispy noodles, from Phrae in the north
- Somtum gai yang, $26: green papaya salad with deboned grilled chicken, sticky rice and jaew sauce, from Khon Kaen in the northeast
- Gaeng pu, $30: crab curry with vermicelli, from Surat Thani in the south
- Gaeng massaman nuer, $32: slow-braised beef in massaman curry from Songkhla, which the menu calls a secret recipe
- Khao ka-yhum pla, $29: grilled fish and rice tossed with chili, shallot, lemongrass and makrut lime leaves, from Lopburi, described on the menu as a childhood dish
The everyday dishes are still there too. Curries, noodles and fried rice start at $19 to $20 with your choice of protein, and pad Thai is $19. Dishes are marked for spice level, and vegetarian and gluten-free items are labeled. If Spice was your weeknight takeout, the corner still serves Thai food. The new menu just goes further into specific regions.
The 2026 openings that didn't replace a closure
Some of this year's openings didn't take over anyone's old space. Most of them are dessert shops and casual spots on the avenues, which is a different kind of change from the corners above.
- Soaked Bar, inside the Nuts Factory at 1030 Third Avenue at East 61st Street, opened its first permanent counter on June 27. It sells tres leches cakes by the box, a nod to its start as a pop-up in 2024, and now smoothies too. East Side Feed traced its start to two friends working out of a New Jersey apartment.
- MYTHOS Greek Frozen Yogurt, a chain that started in Aruba, opened June 12 at 1269 First Avenue near East 68th Street, according to Eater NY.
- Zaxbys opened its first Manhattan location next door at 1267 First Avenue, between East 68th and 69th Streets, on Wednesday, September 30. It serves chicken fingers, wings and salads, per Eater NY.
- La Collina, an Italian bar, restaurant and pizzeria from chef Adrian Kercuku of da Adriano, opened Tuesday, August 18, at 1431 First Avenue between East 74th and 75th Streets.
That puts frozen yogurt and Southern-style chicken side by side on one First Avenue block in the high 60s. It also gives the Third Avenue corner at 72nd its third bakery since winter, and East 64th Street a Korean menu in a dining room still set up the way Bayon left it.
I've watched these corners change all year and enjoyed seeing who moves in. If you're thinking about a home near one of them, or wondering how your own building's block has changed, I'm glad to talk it through with you. Feel free to reach out to Teddy Cafaro. Let's Connect.
