My Bar Failed Because of Covid. Here’s Why I’m Happy About It
A Brooklyn restauranteur details the changes that the coronavirus pandemic has made to his business—and how he’s moving forward.
Fort Defiance, the bar, opened over a decade ago and helped establish Brooklyn, N.Y., as the global epicenter of hipness.
Photographer: Jennifer MitchellFort Defiance, my neighborhood cocktail bar in Red Hook in Brooklyn, N.Y., was born at the right time. It was June 2009, the very month that historians now mark as the end of the Great Recession. New restaurants and food businesses were sprouting all over the borough like mushrooms after a hard rain. Entrepreneurs such as me weren’t aware that we were establishing Brooklyn as the new center of global hipness; we were just following our bliss, jarring artisanal pickles, crafting bean-to-bar chocolate, and writing farm-to-table menus, all under the crepuscular light of a million Edison bulbs. It felt meaningful and exciting, as if we were doing something important.
Those days are a dim memory now, and soon the old Fort Defiance will be, too—another casualty of the coronavirus. And you know what? I’m pretty happy about it.