Thanksgiving 2024
La Caridad 72
La Caridad reopens.
When I lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan at W. 78th Street and West End Avenue, I was lucky enough to live a block from the Cuban-Chinese restaurant, La Caridad 78.
When the 52 year old La Caridad 78 closed in 2020, it was another loss of things that are New York. The closing was even noted by Florence Fabricant in the New York Times.
I remembered that Ruben Blades, in 1991, said that La Caridad’s black beans were the best in the United States (though he added, “You can’t get really good black beans in the United States. There’s not enough taste with black beans in restaurants.”)
On my last trip to New York, I was happy to see that the younger generation of one the original owners, Miguel Yip, convinced him to reopen.
In this interview with UWS Corner Talk, the day after the opening on November 28, 2023, Miguel Yip said, “People who come to La Caridad know what they’re eating. Good Stuff, I guarantee…”
A Beautiful Soup
I clipped this Turkey Gumbo recipe out of the NY Times in 1977 and I still make it every time I have turkey carcass.
A Beautiful Soup (recipe), NY Times, November 21, 1977, Page 47
La Caridad 78
I used to live a block from La Caridad, a Cuban Chinese restaurant that was a fixture on the southwest corner of W. 78th Street and Broadway in New York City. I liked it so much that there were times I ate there twice a day. It was among my favorite places to eat during my tenure in New York along with Café Luxembourg, Hoo Lok Restaurant, Capsouto Freres, The Emerald Inn, The Allstate Café and Freddy and Pepe’s (now Freddy and Pepper’s). That was another era.
When I first saw La Caridad, it was a cab driver hangout – there were always cabs doubled parked on W. 78th Street. Over the years, the restaurant expanded nextdoor, then contracted and in July of 2020, La Caridad closed. The pandemic killed it.
The last time I was there, one of the waiters told me that they wouldn’t be in business too many more years anyway, since their lease was going to expire. Covid-19 just hastened it.
Epitaphs: