“High Real Estate Costs” Force Butterfunk Kitchen & Sumner’s Luncheonette To Close

WINDSOR TERRACE – Two southern food favorites—Butterfunk Kitchen and Sumner’s Luncheonette—shuttered at the end of 2018 as a result of rising rents.

Owners Christopher Scott and Eugenie Woo first opened the community-focused café Brooklyn Commune at 601 Greenwood Avenue (at Prospect Ave.) in 2010 and were awarded a Shona Community Leader Award by CAMBA in 2013. The husband-and-wife team debuted “soul food restaurant & juke joint,” Butterfunk Kitchen, next door at 1295 Prospect Avenue in April 2016. The couple closed Brooklyn Commune in Spring 2018 and replaced it with Sumner’s Luncheonette, serving old-school southern brunch and lunch classics with an “Amish Soul Food twist.”

Chef Scott, a contestant on Top Chef season 15, grew up in Philadelphia, near Amish country. He described Butterfunk Kitchen’s menu as “soul food meets Pennsylvania Dutch,” noting that generations-old family recipes served as his inspiration.

Scott and Woo hosted final celebrations at the two eateries—serving cake and coffee at Sumner’s on the afternoon of Sunday, December 30 and throwing a New Year’s Eve farewell reception at Butterfunk Kitchen on Monday, December 31 “from 8:00pm until all the grub and drinks are gone!”

The couple will open a new restaurant in Bridgeport, Connecticut called Birdman, Eater reports, as well as host pop-ups across the country.