Hokkaido Baked Cheese Tart has closed its storefront at 166 Second Avenue in the East Village, shutting the doors on what had been the Malaysia-based dessert brand's second Manhattan location. The bakery, known for its signature cheese tarts, had spent the month before closing keeping increasingly irregular hours, with some stretches open only on weekends.
The closure was first reported by EV Grieve, which noted the shop had opened at the address in late 2023 between 10th and 11th Streets. The East Village location marked the brand's expansion beyond its original U.S. foothold, since Hokkaido Baked Cheese Tart made its American debut in 2021 at 315 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan's Koreatown, according to WhatNow, which reported the brand had originally announced plans to open five additional NYC outposts over three years.
A Storefront With a Revolving Door of Tenants
Before closing, individual signature cheese tarts at the Second Avenue shop were priced at $4.75 each, with a six-pack listed at $27.00 alongside Basque burnt cheesecake slices and espresso drinks, per listings on Uber Eats. The shop offered its tarts served hot, chilled, or frozen.
The address itself has a long history of commercial turnover. Since Dunkin' Donuts vacated 166 Second Avenue in early 2010, the storefront has hosted at least eight separate food and beverage concepts, including Meyhane, Medina's Turkish Kitchen, Entrez Bar & Grill, Farfasha, Dinah, Pomodora, and Luna Cafe Lounge, the same EV Grieve report noted.
A Niche Dessert Concept Tests New York's Market
Hokkaido Baked Cheese Tart launched in Malaysia in 2016.
Outside Manhattan, the chain also expanded into Queens with an outpost at The Shops at Atlas Park in Glendale, which operated primarily on a weekend-only schedule, WhatNow reported — a reduced operating model that mirrored the weekend-only hours the East Village shop adopted during its final stretch.
Part of a Broader Pattern of Vacant Storefronts
The closure arrives amid persistent commercial vacancy pressures across Manhattan. A June 2026 report from the Office of the New York City Comptroller Mark Levine found that citywide storefront vacancy stood at 11%, with 15,700 unoccupied spaces, even as that figure improved from a late-2023 peak of 11.6%. The same report found that parts of Lower Manhattan continued to face persistent retail vacancy hotspots, where more than 80% of empty storefronts had remained vacant for nine months or longer.
In 2011, Shintaro Naganuma of Kinotoya bakery served the tarts in Singapore; the tart combines cream cheese and mascarpone in a shortcrust shell and is served warm from the oven, according to I Just Want To Eat! Hoodline covered the cheese tart craze back in 2018, reporting long customer lines when rival chain Bake Cheese Tart opened inside San Francisco's Westfield Centre — a location that eventually closed as well.
