Source: Instagram/@fleishers
Fleishers Craft Butchery has permanently closed its doors
The closure puts an end to a 19-year run that ultimately couldn't recover from a controversy around stifling staff expression
Fleishers Craft Butchery has closed for good, ending a roughly two decade-long run that turned sour toward the end.
A short note on its website said that the business has “made the difficult decision” to permanently close, adding that they are “grateful to have been able to give you the best quality and healthiest meat possible during that time.”
The Park Slope location reopened in March for a brief run, following a scandal in which an owner forced staff to remove signage in support of Black Lives Matter and Pride. However, it’s now closed. Fleishers’ other locations never reopened following an employee boycott last summer that triggered the initial shutdown.
Fleishers has never directly acknowledged the controversy, which arose when majority shareholder Robert Rosania asked the company’s CEO to remove Black Lives Matter and pro-LGBTQ+ signage from the shops’ windows.
CEO John Adams previously told Eater that it doesn’t plan to address last summer’s incident. “We’re not going to put out some statement for an event that happened eight months ago,” Adams told the website. “I don’t think that is productive for my employees. I don’t think it is productive for the community that we’re in. I don’t think it is helpful for our customers.”
Adams was Fleishers’ fourth CEO in as many years. During his short tenure, he had, according to a former employee of Fleishers in Park Slope, earned the support of the staff by promising to be a “barrier” between them and Rosania, a wealthy real estate mogul and champagne collector. That barrier proved flimsy when the CEO was ordered to pull down the stores’ signage.
Dozens of employees — well over half of the total staff — resigned in the following days. Rosania apologized in a letter to employees at the time, detailing a plan to create a more supportive work environment. In a story published Wednesday on Grub Street, Adams, said he’s negotiating with suppliers and landlords in an attempt “close the business gracefully.”
“Despite being on a sinking ship, so to speak, we cared about each other and we cared about what we did,” said one former employee last year after the walkout.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misidentified the person who said he was working to close the business “gracefully” as a former employee. It is in fact the current CEO John Adams.
