A Pizza Pop-Up Settles Into a Permanent Brooklyn Home

Eater

08-07-2025

is an editor and reporter for the Northeast region at Eater, focusing primarily on New York City, where she was born and raised. She covers restaurants, bars, pop-ups, and the people powering them.
Third Time's the Charm is not only the name of a new restaurant opening in Red Hook: It is also the story of Chris Milazzo, a so-called 'recovering lawyer,' who launched the pizza pop-up Bad Cholesterol a couple of years ago, and became a fixture at Talea taproom. He's now on his third act, opening an actual restaurant, targeting a September opening.
'We're thinking of Charm as a supper club for the rest of us,' Milazzo said in a press release. 'No membership fees. No celebs. Just a place to tuck in, put your elbows up, and befriend the bartenders.' Sourdough pizza will, of course, continue to play a role, but the menu will also veer into other childhood favorites, like a riff on the Bloomin' Onion and chicken nuggets. Third Time's the Charm is joined by partner Sean Klim (who was in the kitchen at Bad Cholesterol and chef Sam Savage (who also worked on the pop-up). It replaces what was operator Erin Norris' longtime restaurant Grindhaus, there since 2013, and which had more recently rebranded to OurHaus, at 275 Van Brunt Street, near Visitation Place, in Brooklyn.
This Williamsburg diner will be torn down
Shame on Williamsburg developer Yoel Schwimmer, who will tear down the last-of-its-kind diner storefront at 221 Wythe Avenue, in the process of turning the lot into a mixed-use building, Crain's New York reports. It's a fate this space has long been waiting for. What was once Wythe Diner has been vacant for years, but it was an architectural feat with its standalone structure in a neighborhood dominated by a sea of new towers. We held out hope that another restaurant would eventually reopen there: From 1997 until 2010, it was a restaurant called Relish. In 2011, Cafe de La Esquina opened before shutting in 2018. Then, as these things go, Blank Street Coffee ran an outdoor coffee cart in the backyard in 2020. In 2023, lights were turned on again by a limited-run activation by Chanel, symbolizing the way the neighborhood is getting gentrified into a luxury district.
Large dumpling chain lands in Manhattan
Originating in China, with 800 locations abroad, Dumpling Xi has added a second location in New York, on the heels of a Flushing debut a couple of months ago. Now, Dumpling Xi — which originated in Hegang, Heilongjiang, in 2002 — has opened at 71 Fourth Avenue, at East 10th Street, in the East Village. A menu includes dumplings with fillings like zucchini-egg-fried-shrimp, shrimp-fish-roe, and pork-celery.
Bring back Soeun
When Soeun, the SoHo macrobiotic restaurant, closed in 2019 after first opening in 1971, it prompted public outcry. Following the closing of Lola Taverna, the most recent tenant in the space, a tacky Greek clubstaurant, actress Chloë Sevigny posted on Instagram stories this week asking, 'If anyone had a lifeline to bring back Soeun.' For what it's worth, there's still a Soeun in the East Village, but it's not the same.