Beloved Greenpoint cocktail bar Ramona to close at end of year

The bar's 10-year lease expires at the end of the year and management has confirmed they won't be able to afford the coming increase

By Gabe Friedman

Ramona, a popular cocktail bar in Greenpoint, will become the borough’s latest rent hike casualty at the end of the year, when it will shut down out of financial necessity at the tail end of a 10-year lease.

“Due to leasing situations beyond our control, we are unable to renew ours. If we could, we absolutely would,” the bar’s management wrote on Instagram on Sunday. Manager Margaret Fitzgerald confirmed to Greenpointers that “leasing situations beyond our control” translates to a steep rent increase that’s outside of management’s means.

With a long, swanky Carrara marble bar, unique copper pipe chandeliers and two floors that could accommodate large parties and intimate dates, Ramona was a standout destination on Franklin Street, which features several other highly-touted bars and restaurants. It was opened by the team behind Elsa — a similarly-designed cocktail bar that reopened on Atlantic Avenue in Cobble Hill in 2017, after it was priced out of the East Village in 2014.

Greenpoint has become one of Brooklyn’s most rapidly-gentrifying neighborhoods; the average rent for an apartment in the neighborhood went from $2,969 to $4,080 from January 2021 to January 2022.

“Itʼs been a delight to be a place of celebration for birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, bathroom bachelor parties and everything in between,” the bar’s Instagram post added. “Many memories, friendships and life events will far surpass us being open but we have all of you to thank for making it worthwhile.”