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Columbia Dorm Chef Kicked Out Of University Housing
By
Nell Casey
Published May 6, 2016
Modified May 6, 2016
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By
Nell Casey
Published May 6, 2016
Modified May 6, 2016
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Jonah Reider, the Columbia senior who started a restaurant in his dorm room, has been asked to leave university housing. Reider has been living in a university-owned apartment for professors, but received a letter from his landlord saying he'd have to leave by the end of the month, reports the Wall Street Journal. Well, at least he gets to stay until after graduation.
The letter from the landlord said that "ongoing issues that have been relayed to me by the university have made this necessary." Reider says he's received both praise and critique from university officials about his restaurant, which has become so popular there's a waiting list 1,000 people long to attend. "I had university administrators on my wait list that were totally trying to come through," he revealed. "They'd also be, like, please find a new place." The Health Department was also on his case for, ya know, operating a restaurant out of a dorm kitchen.
Reider had planned to stay in the apartment through August, when his sublease ended, but now will obviously have to find another place to live and work. "It would be amazing to find an investor so that I could open up a music venue and snack bar, to have more people," Reider told us last fall.
His ambitions have yet to be tempered, as the WSJ notes: "He hopes to move into a large New York City apartment that is 'underutilized,' like a pied-a-terre, and work as a chef instead of paying full rent. He hasn’t found such a patron yet."
Keep dreaming that dream, Jonah.
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