The news broke just before Shabbos on May 1st when I received a call from the owner of UN Plaza Grill that they have decided to give up their Kosher Supervision.

UN Plaza has been open since August of 2017 under Albert Gad. For almost 9 years, they were known for not just their steaks, but also sushi and their rotating menus featuring food from all over the world.

We are all too aware of how hard it is to own and maintain a kosher restaurant in modern times. The margins are thin, the overhead is steep, and the cost of certified kosher ingredients continues to climb. UN Plaza will still be open as a non-kosher establishment, but the economics of maintaining supervision and sourcing kosher products ultimately made the arrangement unsustainable. Losing the OU certification is not a decision any serious restaurateur makes lightly, and it speaks to the very real pressures facing the industry.

It’s worth pausing to appreciate what UN Plaza Grill represented for the kosher community. This wasn’t just another place to eat; it was the kind of restaurant you brought a client to, the kind of place where you celebrated a milestone and felt like you were doing it right.

I have had my fair share of memories at UN Plaza and looking out the windows at the United Nations building, it’s sad to see them go. Losing them is a reminder of how fragile the kosher dining world truly is and how much we ought to cherish and support these places while we still can.

To Albert Gad and the entire UN Plaza Grill team: thank you for everything you gave the community over nearly a decade. We’ll miss you.