Legendary vegan bakery Clementine closes

Read the text message where owners told staff they'd worked their last shift

Hey all,

Hope everyone is surviving and occasionally thriving in these dogs days of summer.

This week we’ve got the full inside scoop of what happened to beloved vegan cafe Clementine Bakery and Provisions — including the leaked text message where owners broke the news of its closure to staff without warning and how they had carelessly been serving non-vegan food to customers. Plus, a Bed-Stuy block is awarded the second place in Brooklyn’s Greenest Block competition and MT Jones performs on Chauncey St.

Clementine shuts without warning

Vegan neighborhood staple Clementine Bakery has quietly shut after 14 years on the corner of Greene and Classon Avenues.

Employees found out at the end of day on July 25 that they’d worked their final shift in a message sent to the staff WhatsApp group.

“After a great deal of consideration, we have made the heartbreaking decision to close Clementine Bakery indefinitely,” Varada Ashtaputre, one of the owners, wrote in the leaked message published by Bed-Stuy Stoop. “Despite our best efforts over the past several months, the business is no longer financially sustainable, and we have reached a point where we are unable to continue operating.”

Customers have been left frustrated after the bakery failed to announce its closure.

“It’s irritating to see that the owners did not give enough of a shit to even tell everybody that had patronized the store for over a decade that they’d closed,” one former employee told Bed-Stuy Stoop.

The bakery’s Instagram profile now reads: “(V) Bakery & Café since 2012 🍊CLOSED” and customers are voicing their irritation in the comments.

“I and many others have been frequent and loyal customers over the years, even through the ownership change, and suddenly they close with absolutely no public announcement or warning?? Truly saddening…. 💔” wrote one angry customer.

“Any info?? Some of us have been loyal for years!” wrote another.

The former employee, who asked to be anonymous, said the last year was a “tumultuous time” as the cafe struggled with mismanagement, financial issues and distant new ownership.

“Clementine was the most disorganized job I’ve ever had,” they said.

In February, staff were told everyone’s shifts were being cut to just one a week. Opening hours would change suddenly, with no updates on social media. In April, a staff member discovered that the caramel and chocolate syrup that had been served to customers for weeks wasn’t vegan, and owners didn’t seem concerned after being alerted to it.

“I would come in for my one shift a week and we’d be out of at least three or four different menu items and no management was ever present really,” the former employee said. “It was really just a mess.”

What do they think was the main thing to blame for the bakery’s collapse?

“If I have to point at one thing, I would say the owners lack of personal care,” the employee said.

One of the owners, Varada, who lives in New Jersey and was the main contact for staff, did not respond to a request for comment from Bed-Stuy Stoop.

She was part of a group of owners, including some based in India, who had bought Clementine in November 2024 from founder Elle Barton.

Elle told Bed-Stuy Stoop she’d been relieved that a group had purchased it, since she personally had run out of the time and energy needed to maintain the business she first began in 2012.

“I really did like these people that bought the space, I thought they would be a good fit,” she said.

“Unfortunately that wasn’t the case — now it’s closed,” Elle said. “I don’t know what happened.”

Initially after the sale, Clementine continued to source its vegan baked goods from the kitchens of Le Petit Monstre, Elle’s other vegan bakery close to the Brooklyn Navy Yard. But that all changed in January.

“The only thing I can say is that I stopped selling to them,” Elle said. “I stopped selling to them because they had hired some people that I had terminated. It was just a toxic situation.”

The owners scrambled to get vegan baked goods once Elle refused to sell to them — occasionally having staff baking their own or sourcing them from different suppliers, meaning that supply and taste changed constantly, frustrating customers.

Since the pandemic, Clementine’s outdoor seating area had became a bustling spot for new parent meetups, work from home lunches and coffee dates. Thousands of birthdays and events were celebrated with Clementine’s cakes and countless oat lattes sipped. Even Bed-Stuy Stoop’s own baby met Santa Claus for the first time at Clementine.

But an ever-changing staff, management and baked goods supply — plus staff speaking out publicly about their negative experiences — saw customer traffic plummet. Now the store remains empty, the menu still on the wall.

“It’s not fair to everybody who loved it for so long for it to just whimper and die,” the former employee said.

Later this week Bed-Stuy Stoop will publish an in-depth interview for paid subscribers with Elle Barton, who built a vegan empire around Bed-Stuy and Clinton Hill with Clementine, Le Petit Monstre, Izzy Rose and Dreamery — and then watched it collapse. You will want to read this super juicy interview, so upgrade your subscription now.

News from the nabe

• Belting it out in Bed-Stuy: British soul singer MT Jones recorded a performance of his songs “Gentle Reminder” and “Why I Cry” in a Chauncey St backyard for Flood magazine’s Neighborhood series during his recent tour stop in New York.

• Woman and child hit: A 31-year-old mother walking with her three children was left in a critical condition and her four-year-old daughter hospitalized after a driver mounted the curb and struck them on Sunday at 9pm near Nostrand and Park Ave.

• Body found with knife in it: Authorities responding to a wellness check on Sunday instead found a gruesome discovery of a 58-year-old man’s corpse with a knife in his neck on Madison, between Malcolm X and Patchen Ave. His death is being investigated.

When green turns to silver

Huge congrats to the second greenest block in Brooklyn: Jefferson Ave, between Lewis and Stuyvesant.

After being named a finalist in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Greenest Block Competition competition in June, the L&S Jefferson Ave Block Association was awarded a second place tie this week. Last year, the block also secured the second spot.

The Bed-Stuy block is a stunner, with community herb gardens (help yourself to some mint!), gnomes, painted planters, a pollinator garden, a moon garden and lots of cute signage.

This year’s winner was Lincoln Pl in Crown Heights, a block that has won the competition many times. Next year is yours Jefferson Ave!

Things to do this week

• Summer Sundays on Tompkins: Head to Tompkins Ave for a block party to celebrate its beautiful new Tompkins Ave mural (you can read all about the mural and the making of it in a previous Stoop edition) this Sunday, between Putnam and Jefferson, from 12-6pm. This month 5% of proceeds from paid subscriptions to Bed-Stuy Stoop will be going to the fundraiser to get the mural artists paid.

• Fix something at Free Friends Fest: This is the halfway mark for Free Friends Fest: Summer of Radical Joy. Every Friday from 5-7pm at Jackie Robinson Park Playground, at 341 Malcolm X Boulevard, there are a series of performances, workshops and free produce. This week Reciproc8 Repair Cafe, where you can bring clothes for free mending, will be back again.

• Joy As Resistance: STooPS Art & Community, the neighborhood arts organization, is hosting its summer festival this Saturday, August 8. From 1-7pm head down to Decatur Street between Lewis and Stuyvesant Ave for live music, art crawls, vendors and joy.

• Doc Jazz weekend: Jazz at newish (opened in March) Venetian wine bar Cicchetti on Howard Ave this Sunday. Lena Bloch on saxophone, Frank Carlberg on piano and bassist Phil Sirois from 7-9pm, no charge.

That’s all for this edition! Thank you for reading. Producing this newsletter costs about double (paying a nanny for eight blessed hours of baby care!) what Bed-Stuy Stoop currently earns per week in subscriptions. But you can help change that! Sign up for a paid subscription, forward this to your friends, use it as a conversation starter to chat with a cute neighbor. We appreciate you.

And do you have a tip or story idea? Email or text the Bed-Stuy Stoopline (929) 274-1779 — and if you’ve got questions for the community, drop it in the subscriber chat. This week there has been a great conversation about best sandwiches in the nabe, with a lot of love for Chicky’s on Tompkins, so join in.

Until next week!