After Almost 20 Years an NYC Vegan Restaurant Becomes a Comedy Club
In 2022, Epicenter NYC described VSPOT Express on St. Marks Place as the plant-based Latin restaurant that houses St. Marks Comedy Club. VSPOT's website now describes the same address the other way around, saying the brand operates as VSPOT Express out of St. Marks Comedy Club.
The reversal came with the loss of the brand's home base. VSPOT's original restaurant at 156 Fifth Avenue in Park Slope has closed after nearly 20 years, and co-founder Alexis Carabaño wrote in a public Facebook post on November 7 that the restaurant closed after the building was sold. For a restaurant with one lease, the building is the business. VSPOT had a second business at a second address, and that is where the brand went.
From Fifth Avenue to St. Marks Place
Brothers Danny and Alexis Carabaño opened the Park Slope restaurant in 2006 after seeing how little plant-based food, and plant-based Latin food in particular, was available. Their menu reworked Colombian and other Latin comfort dishes like bandeja paisa and empanadas without animal products. In 2015 they opened a second location at 12 St. Marks Place in the East Village, with a comedy club in the back.
Property records compiled by PropertyShark show the Park Slope building changed hands twice in about a year, in March 2025 and again in April 2026. VSPOT's website says the brand continues as VSPOT Express, serving empanadas and chicharrón at the St. Marks address Wednesday through Saturday, 5 to 11 p.m. A kitchen that kept noon-to-10 hours in 2022 now keeps a comedian's schedule.
In the same post, Carabaño wrote that a couple of months after the closure, he signed with a talent agency for the first time. His main goal is to build Red Card Comedy, his soccer-themed comedic variety show, into a tour of the United States and international stages, while he and his brother keep working daily to pay for St. Marks Comedy Club. Among the changes he listed, the end of rushed trips to Park Slope for arepa flour has been, in his words, "a game changer mentally."
The comedy grew up inside the restaurants. Carabaño spent years hosting comedy shows at his own restaurant, according to HBO. He and Mark Viera won the Latinos Stand-Up! competition held with the New York Latino Film Festival, which earned them their own HBO Latino special, Entre Nos: The Winners, in 2020. In that 2022 Epicenter NYC interview, he described a restaurant that was struggling and less busy after the pandemic and said, "We focus more on the comedy because that helps."
A second business in the same room
The Park Slope closure lands during a hard run for New York's fully plant-based dining rooms. HappyCow data reported by VegNews in October 2024 counted 173 fully plant-based restaurants in New York in 2022 and 132 two years later. This year, Candle Cafe chef Jorge Pineda announced a September closure, citing rising operating costs, accumulated debt and an inability to attract outside investment. Candle has lost a room to a building sale before. Its Candle Cafe East location shut down after its building was sold in 2020, according to the same Time Out report.
Some operators have gone looking for a second revenue line. Before Oakland's Millennium announced in early 2026 that the restaurant its customers knew would end, chef-owner Eric Tucker cycled through cheaper specials and themed nights looking for one, and the restaurant has since reopened. The Organic Grill, an early East Village plant-based restaurant, hosted comedy nights and live music before a forced move and an eventual closure. St. Marks Comedy Club runs as a venue of its own, and The Infatuation's 2022 review described it as a full comedy club in the back of the restaurant.
Several multigenerational New York food businesses have opened their rooms to stand-up too. In January, Underground Overground Comedy ran a five-night after-hours tour with stops including Zabar's and Veselka. Co-founder David Levine told Time Out the timing was deliberate, since iconic food spots slow down in January and February when fewer tourists come through.
What to watch on St. Marks Place
VSPOT now operates from a single address on St. Marks Place, while Alexis Carabaño works to take Red Card Comedy on tour. Watch whether VSPOT Express keeps its Wednesday-through-Saturday hours as the tour takes shape. Founders running a plant-based restaurant out of a single lease can ask the question VSPOT answered the hard way. If the building sold tomorrow, which part of the business would still have a room to go to?
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