Beloved Wash Heights Cafe Reopens 3 Years After Closing Down

WASHINGTON HEIGHTS, NY — Three years after the owners of Company on Edgecombe closed down their cafe to refocus entirely on the catering side of the business, the beloved Washington Heights eatery has reopened.

The cafe sits at the corner of Edgecombe Avenue and 159th Street.

The journey to serving customers again at its Washington Heights storefront hasn't been a straight line for owners Thomas Loughlin and Billy Dove.

The business partners originally bought the Washington Heights space with the intention of exclusively operating it as headquarters for their catering company.

However, as Loughlin and Dove continued to get to know their new neighbors better, a new idea began to make more sense.

"It was the perfect location for a catering kitchen, but we never really thought of doing much of a retail space," Loughlin told Patch. "But it is such an amazing neighborhood, it's so diverse, and people would come by and go, 'Oh gosh, you should open a shop.' So we really had a community connection and we wanted to do it that way."

The cafe was opened a short time later.

Subsequently, it was not a matter of disliking the cafe side of the operation that made the business partners eventually shut it down.

"As much as we really enjoyed and loved the cafe part it, we had to close down at that time because we sort of overextended ourselves," Loughlin told Patch.

The business started operating exclusively as a catering company and was doing well until the coronavirus pandemic stopped catering in its tracks.

However, that did not stop Company on Edgecombe from finding a way to keep feeding Washington Heights residents.

Through a grant from the Illumination Fund, the catering service was able to feed families with food insecurity in Washington Heights throughout the pandemic.

Company on Edgecombe provided 180 meals a day to Upper Manhattan families for six straight months during the second half of 2020.

While the funding to provide daily meals eventually ran out, the catering service and cafe still do so on a smaller scale.

The cafe is now currently open Tuesday through Sunday from 4 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. for takeout and delivery exclusively.

You can check out its menu here.