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Say Au Revoir to Mah-Ze-Dahr
Photo: Grub Street
Mah-Ze-Dahr, the high-end bakery known for its cheesecake and brownies, has been given the boot from its West Village location. A two-week eviction notice for the business was posted in April, and the storefront is now dark. As of last week, a notice was posted to the bakery’s website stating that there is an “e-commerce shipping hiatus” and orders will resume “next week.”
Umber Ahmad, a former investment banker, and Shelly Acuña launched Mah-Ze-Dahr in 2013 as an online business with backing and a gold stamp of approval by Tom Colicchio. Acuña left in 2017, by which point the business had become known for its doughnuts, brownies, chocolate-loaf cake, and a cheesecake that Grub once deemed New York’s best, enough to give it good standing when it finally did go brick-and-mortar. In 2015, Mah-Ze-Dahr put down roots at 28 Greenwich Street, and Ahmad spoke about plans for international partnership and expansion to Los Angeles; Washington, D.C.; and elsewhere around the country.
Meanwhile, its West Village landlord first filed a petition over $107,751.93 in unpaid rent and fees in July 2022. A second case ended in August 2024 with Mah-Ze-Dahr agreeing to pay the court-ordered judgment of $160,099.52. By December, the landlord had filed another petition over an additional $82,353.72 of unpaid rent and fees since August. A third location of the bakery, at 601 Lexington Avenue, was evicted in October, the same month that food distributor Chefs’ Warehouse filed a summons over $172,354.25 in unpaid invoices. This January, Mah-Ze-Dahr closed its 3,000-square-foot location in Arlington, Virginia. (A Washington, D.C., location, its first outside New York, shuttered in 2023.)
Texts and emails to Ahmad sent last week initially went unanswered, but after this story ran, she reached out to say she’s settled all judgments against the bakery, along with a statement that said in part:
Due to insufficient maintenance and upkeep, we incurred a litany of flooding and other structural damages to our space and equipment, which often would necessitate ceasing production entirely, as the risk to our team was too dangerous. The entire financial onus for repairs, maintenance, upkeep, and lost revenue was put on us as a small business.
While we have been in this dispute with our landlord, which is not uncommon in the city, we have been actively looking for another retail location in the West Village and are in the process of securing a production facility in Brooklyn.
In an Instagram post, the brand announced the “closing” of the store and its “plan to return to the West Village soon.” Whatever happens, it’s not quite curtains yet: As of this morning, a counter location in the Brookfield Place mall was stocked with cream puffs and busy with customers.
This post has been updated to include a statement from Ahmad.
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