Rats: Barzini’s Now Closed After Failing Health Inspection, Initially Defying Court Order
After it failed a health inspection, a judge ordered the 24-hour Upper West Side grocery store to close on Jan. 13. They defied the order in bursts, leading to a contempt of court ruling against them on Jan. 22. As of Jan. 29, however, store owners had closed the store again.
| 30 Jan 2025 | 10:49
Barzini’s, an Upper West Side grocery store, on Jan. 29. It had defied a court order to close after state health agencies found disgusting conditions inside. (
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Barzini’s with a sign saying that it had closed “temporarily” for “maintenance” on Jan. 29. (
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After severely failing a health inspection, a 24-hour Upper West Side grocery store may finally be obeying a judge’s Jan. 13 order to close. It had remained open in defiance of the order as recently as Jan. 27.
Barzini’s, located at 2451 Broadway, had a handwritten “temporarily closed for maintenance” sign posted on its entrance door as of Jan. 29. They had previously closed the store between the judge’s order and Jan. 20, when they posted the same sign on the door. However, they then reopened to customers for another seven days.
Representatives for Barzini’s are now also expected at a Feb. 6 hearing on contempt of court–as determined in a follow-up Jan. 22 ruling–given their sputtering refusal to close. The judge wrote that Barzini’s is “guilty of Civil and Criminal Contempt and fined $2,000.00 for having willfully disobeyed the Order to Show Cause on Motion for Preliminary Injunction with Temporary Restraining Order (“TRO”), dated January 13, 2025, and entered on January 14, 2025.”
The judge clarified that this was because, on Jan. 16 & 17, Barzini’s “was open and operating and processing food in violation of the TRO issued by this Court.”
The grocer had received the initial restraining order after Upper West Side City Council Member Gale Brewer received constituent complaints about “shocking” safety conditions, according to her newsletter: “Rats running across produce, bought bread that had gnaw marks, and foul odors wafting up the block.”
Brewer said that she notified New York State’s Office of Agriculture and Markets, which is responsible for safety in grocery stores. Inspectors with the agency reportedly discovered that Barzini’s posed an “urgent” risk to public safety, according to Brewer, leading to the judge to issue a closure order on Jan. 13. The inspectors also discovered that the store was not maintaining the required licenses, Brewer said.
”I don’t want the neighborhood to lose Barzini’s. It’s a local business as opposed to a chain, it’s open 24 hours, and it’s beloved,” Brewer wrote, “but safety is a non-negotiable.
“They have to clean up their act, and I hope that they do! It would be a shame to see them go,” Brewer added. Since the newsletter was issued on Jan. 23, when the store was still defying the court order, she told customers to be prudent about choosing to shop there.
Court documents, which were first reported on by ILoveTheUpperWestSide blog, reveal even more gruesome details of the various health violations that Barzini’s reportedly had present. Inspectors found pasta infested with grain beetles, grime & mold on a variety of items, between 500 and 750 rat droppings found in various parts of the store (retail & prep), and cockroach egg casings near the ice box. The scurrying rats that Brewer appeared to reference were seen running above overhead pipes. In addition, a “live brood” of rats was found in the kitchen’s walk-in counter; this meant there were one adult rat and six kits.
Additional grim details contained in the court documents, which were further reviewed by The Spirit, include Brie cheese left “unrefrigerated” and products without proper allergen labels.