Carrot Top Pastries To Close Inwood Location After 40 Years

Patch
The Inwood building the bakery is located in has been without gas since 2017.

INWOOD, NY — Neighborhood bakery Carrot Top Pastries is closing its Inwood location after 40 years after struggling to maintain its business after its building lost gas in 2017, according to a letter posted to the business' window.

The bakery, located on a stretch of Broadway between West 214th and 215th streets co-named in honor of Carrot Top's late founder Renee Mancino, is expected to close in January of 2019, according to the notice.

Since its building lost gas in December of 2017, the bakery has lost 40 percent of its sales. The loss in business has made paying rent and other business expenses untenable for the bakery. Carrot Top's location in Washington Heights, located on Broadway between West 164th and 165th streets, will remain open.

While the building went with gas for a year, landlord Ventura Land Corp. offered false promises that fixes were on the way, the Manhattan Times first reported.

"They said they would fix it in one month, two months, six months. It’s a year already, and still they don’t know when. We can’t afford to stay longer," Carrot Top Pastries employee Pedro Prudencio told the Manhattan Times.

Residents of the Broadway building have also suffered through a lack of cooking gas, and fought with landlords to be provided electric stovetops, according to the report.

Employees at Inwood's Carrot Top Bakeries will be relocated to the Washington Heights store after the business closes, the Manhattan Times reported.

In June of 2019 the stretch of Broadway between West 214th and 215th streets was co-named "Renee Mancino Way" in honor of Carrot Top's late founder. Renee Mancino ran the business for decades with her husband Bob Mancino, daughter Nikki and five grandchildren, according to the bakery's website.

More than 650 people signed a petition on Change.org in support of the the co-naming and hundreds sent letters to the City Council in support of the co-naming.

"For over 35 years, Renee generously donated to senior centers, little leagues, neighborhood organizations, cultural institutions, historic houses, colleges, universities, local police, fire and sanitation departments," reads the petition.

Mancino died of suicide in 2014 amid health problems and concerns that her landlord would hike up the the rent at Carrot Top Pastries.

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