Angelo Sosa Will Turn His Asian Gastropub Into … A Different Asian Gastropub In 2013

Angelo Sosa’s Midtown Asian gastropub Social Eatz will close next year to make room for his new Asian gastropub, Poppy Den NYC. Social Eatz posted the an announcement on Facebook after Grub Street broke the news. The difference between this new Asian gastropub and Poppy Den is unclear, but Grubstreet said the Poppy Den concept was something Sosa developed with a former president of Planet Hollywood, and this outpost will be the second of its kind, after the Vegas location opens in a few weeks. Read the announcement after the jump.

Facebook fans, we’re excited to announce that Social Eatz will be transformed into our new concept Poppy Den NYC in the new year- offering Chef Angelo Sosa the opportunity to fully elevate the Asian-gastropub concept he launched in 2010. The cuisine will be a market-driven, gastronomic interpretation of Chef Sosa’s travel’s throughout the East. The food will exemplify his extraordinary ability to extract taste from simple ingredients and build them into complex layers of flavor, all with a signature Asian influence. The new fare will be light and healthful, oftentimes eclectic, always immensely flavorful. Our expanded beverage program will be run by Sosa Restaurant Group’s Beverage Director Josh Wortman, who recently built the award-winning beverage program at Sosa’s other NYC restaurant, Añejo Tequileria. The upcoming changes reflect Chef Sosa’s ever-growing passions for food and service, his need to continue refining and innovating what has already been well-received.

Of course, we’re still excited to serve our new Social Eatz menu into the new year, so come down soon!

“We are extremely proud of the last two years at Social Eatz and all of the accomplishments earned during that period. Those accomplishments make us that much more excited to launch our new Asian-gastropub vision to New Yorkers at Poppy Den NYC in the new year.”
-Angelo Sosa

When Social Eatz originally opened we were pretty excited, especially by their splurge-worthy burgers. But then, earlier this year they revamped the menu, pricing themselves almost completely out of ML range. No word yet on Poppy Den NYC’s menu or price point, but my hopes aren’t high for ML-friendly items. So, if you’re a Social Eatz fan, you still have a few weeks left enjoy your bibimbap burger (which is now ridiculously priced at $17 at lunchtime, by the way), so hop to it.

5 Comments

  • Ate at Social Eatz once for brunch. It wasn’t bad, but a little pricy, but then again I’m not a brunch person.

    My heart swells two sizes, I think it’s my heart, every time I see that porn store next door though. :)

    I guarantee this will just be a rehash of what’s already good about Social Eatz. It’s just a reason to drop it’s horrible name for one that is moderately less bad.

    “Poppy Den” where the first hit of opium is always free.

  • I hope they keep the signature burgers, which are absolutely phenomenal. But dropping that stupid name is a good idea.

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    The reason they are changing names is because angelo doesnt know how to manage a restaurant. After having a falling out with his partners and being behind 6 months rent, he needed to find a new sucker/investor to bail him out from his horrible mismanagement of social eatz.

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