The Bourgeois Pig

Ravi DeRossi opened the Bourgeois Pig on East 7th Street out of necessity: he wasn't making enough money as a painter to support himself¹. It was his first venture and a press favorite; then he co-founded Death & Co.². The Village Voice filed the "wine boudoir" under DeRossi's East Village mini-empire, alongside Death & Co., the tequila den Mayahuel and the cevicheria Desnuda³.

Our old review caught it just after a move down the street into much bigger and fancier digs, and found it as comfortable as a favorite pair of worn-in jeans. In April 2010 the Smurfs movie came to the block, and the Pig had a starring role, or at least its fictitious sidewalk cafe did⁴. Neil Patrick Harris got out of a cab and walked into number 111⁴.

In November 2014 word came that the Pig would close when its lease expired in February, and a rent hike was behind it^{5, 6}. After 10 years in the East Village it shut its "grand old (looking) doors" in January 2015, and by then a new Bourgeois Pig was open at 127 MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village^{6, 7}. Back on Seventh Street the storefront had been asking $10,500⁸; the wine bar Virgola put up its sign in October 2015 and closed after 10 months^{8, 9}.

On MacDougal, DeRossi made good in June 2016 on his plan to turn the Pig, the first bar he ever opened, into Ladybird, a vegan wine bar and tapas restaurant¹⁰. The next April he decided to move Ladybird to Seventh Street, "where it should have been in the first place"⁹. Ladybird opened at 111 East 7th Street on September 5, 2017, with the musician and animal-rights activist Moby among its investors^{11, 12}.

In July 2026 the owners said they would not renew the lease after nearly a decade in the neighborhood, and that Ladybird would close at the end of the year¹³. Overthrow, the company behind it, said the decision came as it shifted its focus to expanding Soda Club, starting with Denver¹³. Until then Ladybird is still serving at the Pig's old address¹⁴.