New restaurants come to Morningside

With the new year, several staple dining establishments on Broadway have changed names, changed owners, or changed establishments altogether.

And now, the dining scene in Morningside Heights includes a few more options amid persistent vacancies.

On the corner of 112th Street and Broadway, the bubble tea and dumpling restaurant formerly known as Café East recently became Tea Magic. Sharon Ling and Milton Mao were the owners of the former Café East on Broadway, as well as another establishment by the same name, which operates inside Lerner Hall on campus in conjunction with Café 212.

According to Ling, on Jan. 8, Mao sold his share of the Café East location on Broadway in order to focus on the Lerner Hall location, leaving Ling the sole proprietor of the Broadway establishment.
Besides changing the name from Café East to Tea Magic, Ling has added some new tastes to the menu.

“We are still selling bubble teas, but now we have a lot more flavors,” she said. “We are also now selling pastries and some more homemade stuff, things we didn’t do before.”

The dumplings, she said, will remain the same as the ones sold at Café East because both restaurants receive their dumplings from the East Dumpling House on 106th Street, which she and Mao co-own.

The storefront has evolved from Fotorush to Café East and now to Tea Magic.

But some customers said that the change is minor.

Victoria Lee, SEAS ’12, said while she was inside of Tea Magic, “I came back because of the bubble tea and frozen yogurt, which are still the same. The only differences I noticed were more flavors in bubble teas and the jars of raw tea on the counter.”

But some students said they see little need to go to the off-campus location.

“I’ve never been to Tea Magic, I usually just come [to Café East] for bubble teas because it’s cheap and convenient,” said Soyeon Park, TC ’09 and a customer at the Café East in Lerner.

Farther down Broadway between 110th and 111th streets, the empty storefront where Empanada Joe’s once stood is being taken over by Maoz Vegetarian, a chain vegetarian food restaurant. The space, which has been vacant for over a year and is currently being rented out by Famiglia’s pizza restaurant, will be leased to Maoz. Within a block, though, vacancies remain in the shadow of Tomo Sushi and Jas Mart, which both left the neighborhood last year.

“I had been eyeing this location for about a year and a half,” said Iris Keltz, the future owner of the Morningside Heights Maoz, who also owns a location in Union Square. “With the college, the hospital, and the Teachers College, it seemed like a perfect location,” she said, adding that the store is set to open in March.

“Everybody’s used to pizza, burgers, and burritos for cheap, late-night snacks, and we are providing a healthy alternative,” Jim Facella, Maoz’s chief operating officer, said. “Our store has been successful down by NYU, and we think that our concept is attractive to students and young professionals.”

nicholas.bloom@columbiaspectator.com