Actor Josh Lucas — of “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Yellowstone” fame — is rallying to save a beloved Lower East Side French bistro that is struggling to stay afloat in a transformed post-pandemic neighborhood.
Lucas, who serves as a partner in Les Enfants de Bohème — a mainstay on Henry and Jefferson streets for 10 years — implored his more than 400,000 Instagram followers this week to donate to a GoFundMe for “the wonderful French local favorite cafe I love so much.”
Restaurant co-owner Stefan Jonot said he launched the last-ditch effort after a rise in remote work chased away much of the weekday lunch and dinner crowd — and inflation and sky-high rents for New Yorkers has meant that fewer folks are willing to shell out on a nice meal.
“We didn’t realize what would be the impact [of COVID],” Jonot told The Post. “All the PPP [Paycheck Protection Program] and things like that, we thought this might save us … we didn’t realize the impact of the aftermath.”
As the pandemic unfolded, more homeless individuals were seen around in the area — sometimes engaging in rampant drug use and fighting, Jonot said.
The lack of street lighting around Jefferson Street hasn’t assuaged his safety concerns: “If you don’t know my place, you will not pass by.”
The customer loss has hit Les Enfants so much that the restaurant has ceased its lunchtime hours.
At one point, Jonot even operated a small stand-alone cafe next door — dubbed Les Enfants Delice — with late-night hours, but that fell victim to the pandemic as well.
Jonot recalls a cohort of regular senior citizens who frequented Les Enfants nearly every day before the pandemic. As of late, the seniors only pop in two to three times a week.
Two incidents involving water damage has set the restaurant behind even further, per the GoFundMe fundraiser, which as of Friday, had raised $3,900 of its $40,000 goal.
The bistro owner blamed a “domino effect” on the downfall of scores of neighborhood businesses after the pandemic, including rising energy and food prices. In fact, the France-born restaurateur said he’s facing a 40% increase in electricity prices alone.
“Everything is more expensive,” he said, “but we try to maintain [the] quality.”
Jonot has raised his menu prices by a few dollars here over time, he said, but attempts to keep the menu affordable compared to the newer, swankier establishments that have popped up in recent years.
Menu items include bohemian burgers and fries starting at $22, plus $23 Atlantic mussels, $25 roasted chicken and $33 steak frites.
“It’s hard to ask [for help],” said Jonot, who co-owns the eatery with his wife Cathy Lang Ho.
“For months, I was like, ‘I will figure it out,’ but this summer was bad.”
The summer tourism season hasn’t brought in the foot traffic Jonot had hoped, and the Lower East Side – one of the “last villages of Manhattan,” according to the owner – has changed significantly for business owners since 2020.
“We have a lot of artists in the neighborhood – they’ve been forced to leave because it’s expensive,” Jonot said. “It’s the second wave, basically all people with money – because if you don’t have money, it’s really hard [to live] in New York.”
The Lower East Side and Chinatown has seen a significant shift in wealth in the last 20 years, according to NYU’s Furman Center. The household income group with the largest share of households in the neighborhoods was those making less than $20,000 — and in 2022, that group was outranked by those making $100,001 to $250,000.
Jonot has been cultivating deep community roots at Les Enfants de Bohème for years, he said.
The restaurant has a license to close the street for events, even hosting a popular clothing swap on the first Saturday of each month. The eatery has also hosted World Cup watch parties, jazz shows, anniversary parties and other gatherings.
The owner said neighbors even leave their apartment keys at the eatery when they’re out of town — and a Gothamist profile from 2020 noted Jonot was even asked to water plants and take in mail from locals who left New York City.
While Jonot and his wife were lending a hand to Lower East Side locals, the community followed through with a 2020 fundraiser that raised over $24,700 to pay employees and ease the bistro’s “mounting debt.”
Through his latest call-out for community support, Jonot not only plans to keep Les Enfants’ doors open, but aims to bring back lunch hours and reopen the coffee shop next door.
To Jonot, it’s a much-needed third space for a changing, “more corporate” neighborhood.
“You have less and less places that are not corporate,” the restaurateur said of the Lower East Side.
“You have less and less places where you will recognize the waiter, recognize the bartender. Here, you feel basically at home.”
