Chinese Restaurant to Open in Place of The Queens Kickshaw

We already miss your fab cold brew, Kickshaw.

Well, it’s the end of an era—The Queens Kickshaw is done, over, shuttered. They did some wonderful things for the Astoria food scene, like serving excellent coffee, creating interesting and delicious meatless meals, and they led the pack in Queens in their work promoting the beautiful world of hard cider.

At the closing party, owner Ben Sandler gave a speech. Here is the part where he reveals the new concept for the restaurant:

“It’s bittersweet to see Kickshaw go, but we’re really excited for the next thing. We are going to completely renovate the whole inside of this space, when you come in here you won’t even recognize it, but the soul of Kickshaw is going to remain. I don’t know if you know, but we’re going to open a Chinese restaurant, that’s not a joke. It’s going to be a place where all of you are going to feel really welcome, it’s going to be a continuation of all love that we’ve felt this whole time. It’s going to be wonderful.”

Grub Street elaborates: “They’re converting the space into a Chinese restaurant, albeit one with a menu covering ‘Sichuan, some Filipino-Chinese dishes Jen grew up with, as well as twists on American-Chinese takeout,’ says Sandler.” So, don’t expect a pure regional Chinese restaurant (the kind I’ve been hoping for over the years), but one that draws from multiple Asian food traditions. How “authentic”—whatever that means—is up in the air, but my guess is that regardless, the food will be delicious.

Maybe we’ll see more dumplings to come?

Now that you know more of what’s up, this may convince you to reserve a $35 ticket for their opening week, which should be in early October (exact dates via the Kickshaw staff unknown, though Yelp indicates October 2, 2017), unless things change; that may very well happen, since it’s fairly normal to predict a timeline and have unforeseen circumstances crop up.

Good luck with the transition, Ben and Jen. We look forward to learning more about the new restaurant in the coming weeks!

2 Comments

NeonKitty September 8th, 2017

Does anyone know if the new restaurant will also be vegetarian?

Reply

Emily Rios September 11th, 2017

Yes! We heard the new concept will be Vegetarian!

Reply