Chloe Coscarelli is back with vegan NYC restaurant, CHLOE

Chloe Coscarelli searched for the perfect space for her new restaurant, CHLOE, “for years. I toured probably hundreds of spaces.”

But when she stepped into 185 Bleecker Street, “It felt like I was home.

“The space is perfect — because I built it already,” Coscarelli, 36, told The Post.

A little over seven years ago, the celebrity chef was riding high.

Her By Chloe restaurant chainlet was credited with making vegan fare chic and accessible.

Starting with her original West Village location, opened in 2015, she expanded to five locations in Manhattan and Brooklyn, as well as outposts in Los Angeles, Boston and Providence.

She was named to Forbes 30 Under 30.

But in July 2017, Coscarelli was forced out of By Chloe by former business partners — losing not just her brand but her own name — in a nasty legal battle.

Even at her lowest, she told herself she’d somehow find a way back.

Earlier this month, Coscarelli opened CHLOE, a plant-based all-day cafe, in the same exact space where she started nine years ago.

Redemption never tasted so sweet.

“I feel incredibly lucky. It sounds cheesy, but you do have to believe in yourself, even if the path doesn’t seem clear,” Coscarelli said of making her comeback dream come true.

Coscarelli grew up in Los Angeles — her mom formerly worked in retail and is now a manager at CHLOE, and her dad works as a film director — and went vegan at age 16.

She moved to New York for culinary school at the Natural Gourmet Institute in the Financial District and, in 2010, the then 22-year-old became the first vegan chef to win the Food Network cooking competition show “Cupcake Wars.”

She published her first cookbook, “Chloe’s Kitchen,” in 2012, and started developing recipes for what was then a totally new and novel dream: a fast-casual restaurant that upended the old stereotype of bland, boring vegan food served in self-serious restaurants clinging to hippie macrobiotic days.

By Chloe would be open and airy, light and bright, with Instagrammable decor.

The menus — featuring playful doodles of fries and burgers — offered such comfort food spins as a quinoa-taco salad and black-bean and sweet-potato Guac Burger.

Calling it “elite veganism,” The New Yorker praised the restaurant’s “faux mac and cheese, with a sweet-potato-cashew-cheese sauce and shiitake bacon, is better than the real thing.”

Coscarelli partnered with Samantha Wasser, whose father, Jimmy Haber, owns BLT Steak, to open the first restaurant in 2015.

Grub Street reported By Chloe was fielding nearly 1,000 tickets per day in the first year.

But in 2016, she was pushed out of Haber’s ESquared restaurant group because, according to a lawsuit she filed, the company wanted to “mass produce” her fare and she didn’t, and she told The Post, when she “refused to align” with Haber’s demand for total control of the company.

When Coscarelli didn’t relent, she claimed in the lawsuit, ESquared execs  “hatched a plan to steal the company instead.” 

An attorney for Haber and Wasser at the time said their company, ESquared “has always — and will continue to — act in the best interest of By Chloe.”

Coscarelli also claimed in the lawsuit that Haber “mocked” and “threatened” her — calling her a “a fragile little girl” who needed “a shrink” and warning “she would need ‘a bodyguard’ if she dared to meet with
him in person.”

Haber said in a statement in 2018 the company is “disappointed by these public accusations from a disgruntled former partner”  trying to “undermine the company and hurt its loyal employees,” Eater reported.

“It was incredibly challenging,” Coscarelli told The Post of that time. “Even just walking around in the city that you love the most and seeing your name everywhere and knowing that you can’t even go in, and that it doesn’t belong to you, even though it was by you and created by you — that was a really challenging situation to navigate.”

The lawsuit was settled and Coscarelli’s ownership was reinstated, but the damage was done.

In December 2020, the By Chloe chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Rebranded as Beatnic, it was put up for sale and acquired by investors in 2021. 

Now owned by fast-casual Indian chain INDAY, Beatnic is down to just one location in Boston and one at the South Street Seaport.

She called the end of the By Chloe era in 2021 “both sad and … probably for the best.”

But her fans never stopped believing in her. 

“So many of us have always been here supporting you,” a customer commented on her Facebook post at the time. “Never let greedy people get you down.”

And she never stopped dreaming of opening her own place, her way, again. Last year, she came across an irresistible bit of serendipity.

“When I saw my original Bleecker Street location empty and up for lease my first thought was, ‘Wow that’s a shame, all of that for nothing,’” Coscarelli told The Post. “And my second thought was, ‘Let me just call the broker and see if I can take a peek inside.’

“Luckily, the landlord really wanted me to come back.”

Her new menu includes dishes like butternut nachos made with a maple seitan; and spicy cashew kelp noodles in a chili sauce.

There’s a Classic Burger made with a charred mushroom-walnut-soy patty.

Desserts include cinnamon espresso cookies, a coconut cream tiramisu and Coscarelli’s signature cupcakes and cakes.

On the opening night at CHLOE, Coscarelli — who is currently single — was showered with flowers by longtime fans and guests telling her how much they’ve missed her food. There was a now-married couple who had their first date at By Chloe.

Another couple who frequented the old restaurant came in with their two kids.

“[They] see this space as a marker of time in their life. There’s a handful of guests who came in when they were young,” Coscarelli said, “and are now returning in a more grounded place in their life. To feel like they have that connection to the space is special.”