Bird & Bao, the small Taiwanese-inspired bao bun shop that spent seven years serving fried chicken buns out of a tucked-away storefront in downtown Patchogue, has closed its doors for good. The restaurant announced the closure in Patchogue, New York, thanking the people who ate there, supported it, and worked alongside it over the years, and saying it plans to begin a new chapter.
The news landed hard with regulars. According to Daily Voice, the closure shocked regular customers and foodies across Long Island, with at least one customer publicly asking the restaurant to reopen in some capacity. Bird & Bao was named one of Newsday's top 50 restaurants on Long Island back in 2019, per Daily Voice, a distinction that helped cement its reputation well beyond Patchogue's Main Street dining strip.
Founder and chef Conor Swanson started Bird & Bao after working for chef David Chang in New York City. Swanson, a Kings Park native and French Culinary Institute graduate, spent time at Chang's Momofuku before returning to Long Island to open his own restaurant, according to The Long Island Advance. He spent years in Brooklyn refining his bao bun technique before bringing that urban, Taiwanese-inspired fast-casual style to the suburbs.
A Painstaking Process Behind the Signature Bun
Bird & Bao served bao buns stuffed with fried chicken, available with a wide variety of sauces and arrangements, priced at $6.50 each. Behind that simple menu item was a labor-intensive process: the restaurant's signature chicken thighs were marinated for 24 hours in a soy sauce spice mix, then dredged in sweet potato starch and double-fried, according to Newsday. That double-fry in starch is what gave the chicken its light, crisp texture typical of Taiwanese street food.
The menu grew well beyond its original fried chicken bao over the restaurant's seven years, eventually including house-cured pork belly, tofu, falafel, Kimchi smashburgers, “Sesame Noodz” soba noodles, and a crushed cucumber salad, Newsday reports. Bird & Bao operated out of just 1,200 square feet at 58b South Ocean Avenue, in a storefront that had previously housed the Suffolk Sports Hall of Fame before the local Business Improvement District subdivided it to attract small food businesses.
A Rare Small Footprint in a District of Big Bars
When Swanson submitted his plans to the Patchogue Village Planning Board in late 2018, the project was approved under D3 zoning rules permitting a 14-seat takeout establishment. That approval shaped the restaurant for its entire run: Bird & Bao occupied a small 14-to-15-seat space in a downtown Patchogue dining district otherwise dominated by large, full-service party venues and sit-down bars, filling a fast-casual takeout niche that was otherwise rare on South Ocean Avenue, per the same Newsday account.
Beyond its storefront, the restaurant built community ties through outside events. In June 2021, Swanson and Bird & Bao provided farm-to-table brunch catering for the Mama Farm Timbalooloo children's music event on Long Island, which featured Carnegie Hall artist and West African kora master Yacouba Sissoko, according to The Suffolk County News.
Part of a Wider Wave of Closures Downtown
Bird & Bao's closure fits into a broader pattern of restaurant departures in downtown Patchogue in recent years. It follows the closures of Locale Gastro Bar & Pizzette in early 2026, The Cuban in late 2025, and PeraBell Food Bar back in August 2023, as tracked by Greater Long Island. Rising post-pandemic labor and operational costs have squeezed profit margins for independent restaurant owners throughout the district.
Downtown Patchogue's rise as a premier Long Island dining destination took shape over roughly two decades, sparked by the 2000 launch of the Alive After Five summer festival and the mid-2000s restoration of the historic Patchogue Theatre, according to Newsday's earlier reporting. That growth peaked just before the pandemic: in early March 2020, restaurant density downtown had created such severe parking congestion that the Patchogue Village Board was prepared to enact an 18-month moratorium on approving new eateries, a plan that was shelved only when COVID-19 shutdowns began weeks later.
For now, Bird & Bao's exact next steps remain unclear beyond the promise of a new chapter. What is certain is that the restaurant leaves behind a loyal following, at least one of whom has already made clear what they want to see next: as Daily Voice reported, a customer's plea was simple — “You have to reopen.”
