Lulu’s is on its last legs.
Greenpoint’s beloved beer-and-a-pizza joint will close for good on Aug. 9 because the landlord declined to renew the business’s lease, said bar manager Ani Monteleone.
“Everyone in the neighborhood is really sad, but to them it is just business,” Monteleone said of the building owner.
Lulu’s opened on Franklin Avenue nine years ago and quickly became a neighborhood hangout, offering free punk shows and a free personal pizza with every beer. One regular said the closure is a big bummer for “avant-garde types and delightful weirdos of all kinds.”
“Not only is Greenpoint losing one of its more affordable and low-key hangout spots, but the closing of Lulu’s is a real loss to New York’s underground music scene,” Dan Zajackowski said.
Monteleone said she did not know whether the landlord’s decision to cancel the lease was related to a lawsuit that proprietor John McGillion filed earlier this year over a supposed clause in the lease that prohibited McGillion from running a “gay bar.”
“I do not know the details,” Monteleone said. “All I know is that the rent is too high and they were not making enough money.”
McGillion also owns a handful of bars in Williamsburg, including Macri Park on Union Avenue, the Alligator Lounge on Metropolitan Avenue, and the Charleston on Bedford Avenue, the latter two of which also offer free pizza.
The 11 employees of Lulu’s all have the option of taking jobs at the other bars, Monteleone said.
With all due respect to Greenpoint pizza palace Paulie Gee’s — and much respect is due — Lulu’s was once a favorite production-night haunt of the Brooklyn Courier’s layout team. Then those ink-stained wretches started getting out of the office at a more reasonable hour, when more sit-down food options were available. Whether their sudden absence was the pepperoni that broke the camel’s back is not known.
The bar’s landlord could not be reached.
— with Nathan Tempey
