Within Veselka, New York City’s most preferred Ukrainian cafe

Because 1954, Veselka has been a New York staple. The restaurant was at first opened by a Ukrainian immigrant as a modest coffee store on an East Village street corner.

Around time, its menu expanded. So did the actual physical digs: The unique location, nonetheless Veselka’s house, is much more substantial than it made use of to be. Starting in 1990, the restaurant became a 24/7 joint, serving breakfast, brunch, supper and late-night time treats like pierogis, goulash and latkes.

In 2019, the cafe expanded to a next location, opening a storefront in a meals marketplace named The Marketplace Line on Manhattan’s Reduce East Aspect.

“The business enterprise 10 decades in the past was a little different, but was very much the similar crowd,” Desiatnychenko, who has labored in a variety of roles at the cafe about the previous ten years, says. “Folks would be coming in from bars, dining establishments, golf equipment [at] 4 o’clock in the morning, 5 o’clock in the morning… to get their last night time bite.”

Desiatnychenko is aware of firsthand why so numerous men and women find Veselka distinctive. He emigrated from his hometown of Kyiv, Ukraine’s capitol, to New York soon soon after finishing a bachelor’s diploma in economics from Kyiv Countrywide Financial University in 2012. Two weeks after going to the metropolis, he was hired at Veselka — on the location — as a busser and element-time shipping man or woman.

“Veselka has come to be my 2nd dwelling,” Desiatnychenko says. “However, I don’t have a family members in the U.S., so people that do the job at Veslkea have develop into my American spouse and children. I just deal with the organization as my possess business enterprise and generally test to do what performs the finest for enterprise mainly because I just treatment about it.”

These days, as a front-of-property supervisor, Desiatnychenko’s common responsibilities involve overseeing the dining assistance, takeout and buyer encounter.

But on any offered working day, he may possibly choose on any other further duty in just the restaurant as needed, he claims: All through peak of the Covid pandemic, when Veselka missing a third of its personnel, he even rotated into the cooking line, building sandwiches and eggs on the grill.

When Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, Desiatnychenko suggests he couldn’t rest or eat. He consistently checked his cellular phone for updates on his family nevertheless in Ukraine, together with his mother, dad and 83-yr-previous grandmother.

Now, he calls them day by day before they go to sleep, accounting for the seven-hour time difference — and once again as they wake up, prior to he goes to slumber. “The only problem I have every time, it’s the same problem: ‘Are you fellas Ok?'” Desiatnychenko suggests. “I will not treatment about everything else. I just want to listen to that they’re Ok.”

Almost immediately right after the invasion, Veselka turned a local community hub for Ukrainians in New York. The restaurant’s proprietors quickly determined to donate proceeds from gross sales of borscht – a regular Ukranian soup produced from veggies and fermented beet juice – to the Ukrainian government, meant for armed forces desires.

The cafe also converted its warehouse into a donation center. So significantly, people today have supplied flashlights, batteries, diapers and medical provides for Ukrainian citizens. “Individuals have been bringing items continuously, every day, nonstop,” Desiatnychenko says. “I was seriously shocked about how people today picked up on this thought.”