Business & Tech
Natural Foodies End 22-Year Run
"Deciding to close was incredibly hard, but we're leaving with hearts full of love," the owners wrote.
By Paul Bass, New Haven Independent
NEW HAVEN, CT — Downtown’s B Natural eatery has closed its doors, ending a two-decade-plus downtown run for healthful-food serial entrepreneurs.
The fast-casual natural foods restaurant at 260 College St. closed its doors last week.
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The high price of natural fresh food, combined with labor and rent costs, made the years since Covid-19 broke a continuing struggle, said Nebyat Shewaye, who ran the restaurant with his wife Gabi Merayo.
“Deciding to close was incredibly hard, but we’re leaving with hearts full of love. We didn’t just serve coffee and bowls; we built a life here. To our regulars: you became our lifelong friends. We truly want to thank the City of New Haven and Yale Properties for giving us the chance to grow here since the very beginning,” the couple wrote in a note to customers. “While our doors are now closed, the memories of your laughter, your stories, and your loyalty will stay with us forever. Thank you, New Haven, for being our family for 22 wonderful years.”
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Shewaye, who came to the U.S. from Ethiopia, and Merayo, who hailed from Costa Rica, opened a series of ventures that tapped into the growing public appetite for health-conscious eating, beginning with a coffee shop and eatery at 97 Orange St. They moved the operation to a larger space in Sherman’s Alley at 1044 Chapel before expanding in 2020 to the spacious restaurant in the heart of the College Street entertainment district. They looked to harness evolving customer trends including online ordering, creating New England’s “first snack subscription service.” At each step they put their hearts and souls into their ventures and communicated their passion to their customers.
“We began with nothing more than a simple dream and a lot of heart. Looking back, we are so proud that we stayed true to what mattered most: making fresh, farm-to-table food accessible to our community,” the couple said in their message.
Shewaye said they have no plans to open a new eatery. “This will be our last chapter” in the New Haven food scene, he said.
The New Haven Independent is a not-for-profit public-interest daily news site founded in 2005.
