Last week, Williamsburg’s dog-friendly cafe, Boris & Horton (510 Driggs Ave.), announced that it is closing its doors after less than one year in the neighborhood.
The news was publicized on February 15 in an Instagram post that said, “After over 6 years in business, we’ve made the devastating decision to close both locations of Boris & Horton on February 26th.”
Owner Logan Mikhly explained to Greenpointers that Boris & Horton was closing because “foot traffic wasn’t high enough to compete with the continually rising cost of business in New York City.”
However, on February 22, just days before the cafe was supposed to shut down operations, Mikhly said that he and his partner Coppy Holzman are “going to try to save the cafes.”
This exciting pivot was made after Mikhly and Holzman were shown an outpouring of love from the cafes’ local communities. Their post about the closures received a whooping 1,821 comments, prompting the owners to write, “thank you so much for all of the love and support,” and adding that their DMs were getting hard to manage.
After this substantial show of support, Boris & Horton decided to attempt to save the cafes with an online fundraiser that will end on February 26. The owners are trying to raise $250,000 from donations and subscription boxes that can be purchased on the fundraising page of the website.
At the time of publication, Boris & Horton has raised over $44,000 after only being active for a few hours.
“We’re asking for our community’s support to make it a success,” Mikhly said. “The community’s response to our closure has completely blown us away, so we’re going to launch a fundraising drive to see if we can keep both cafes up and running. We have a lofty goal of raising $250,000 over the next several days,” Mikhly told Greenpointers.
“The funds will go towards cleaning and repairing our East Village location, bringing in another full-time staff member, and taking some time off to do some business planning while we pay our staff,” Mikhly noted.
Boris & Horton, named after the owners’ dogs, first opened in 2018 in the East Village and touted itself as “New York’s first dog-friendly cafe.” In March 2023, Greenpointers reported that the duo planned to expand into Williamsburg with a second location.