Veselka, a Ukrainian restaurant in the heart of Manhattan’s Ukrainian Village on the Lower East Side, has been serving authentic Ukrainian food to its community since 1954. It is the oldest Ukrainian-American restaurant in New York, and is currently owned by Brooklyn Tech alumnus Jason Birchard (‘84).
Birchard began working in his family’s restaurant part-time during high school and took on more responsibility in the business after graduating from The University at Albany, where he majored in Business Administration and Economics.
One of Veselka’s trademarks is being open 24 hours a day—an idea of Birchard’s that helped turn the business from a “busy neighborhood coffee shop” to the NYC institution it is today. His creativity later shone again with the popularity of his “Eat Borscht, Stand With Ukraine” campaign, which donated 100% of the profits from beet borscht sales to Ukrainian relief.
“My grandfather started this as a Ukrainian-style bodega, and in the early ‘50s my father turned it into a diner,” said Birchard. “Now we have a full-fledged 24-hour successful business.”
Veselka’s beloved 24 hour a day experience ceased due to the COVID-19 pandemic, however, it is slowly being implemented again. This 24 hour policy will soon resume starting on Friday and Saturday nights. Veselka has also opened a kiosk in Grand Central Station, and a Williamsburg location that opened on June 5th. Birchard credits his team and the surrounding community for Veselka’s comeback.
“It really takes a village, he said. “I have a really loyal, dedicated staff, and I have a lot of people that come here regularly.”
According to Birchard, Veselka’s delicious,well-priced comfort food, along with its deep roots in the community, has seen it through “many different calamities”. Events from the financial ruin of the 1970’s, to 9/11, to Hurricane Sandy, have united local communities around Veselka since its start. Veselka, Birchard emphasized, “just kind of stayed the course, and we’re fortunate that people keep coming back.”
After the Russo-Ukrainian War began in February 2022, Veselka began to make concerted efforts to raise funds for Ukrainian aid. Borscht, a beet soup commonly made with meat and vegetables, has long been a Ukrainian staple, and a Veselka menu favorite. It was officially declared a UNESCO heritage dish of Ukraine in July 2022, shortly after the war began, which gave Birchard an idea. “All of the sales of our borscht would go to help relief efforts,” he decided, partnering with Razom for Ukraine, a nonprofit organization aimed at providing aid in order to “unlock the potential of Ukraine,” to help him manage the influx of donations. “Then we marked all our borscht sales to a variety of nonprofit organizations, Razom being one of them,” explained Birchard.
Birchard described Razom, which means “together” in Ukrainian, as “a small grassroots student-based nonprofit that [has been] helping since 2014, during the first invasion of Crimea.” According to Razom’s “About Us” page, it was created for those who want “to do their part to help the movement as best they could from abroad,” especially Ukrainian-Americans who could only watch from home as their country was invaded.Since the war began, Veselka has raised over half a million dollars for relief efforts. The restaurant has become a rallying point for New Yorkers donating to causes in Ukraine.
“We’ve posted on our website and shared email blasts [for] people [that] wanted to donate clothes or food or diapers, and people did,” explained Birchard.
Birchard’s aid efforts have expanded on the menu as the scale of support has increased.
“The borscht initiative was a great initiative,” he said. “Now I’ve transformed that into a different [one]. I’ve created a special pierogi bowl called the Standard Ukraine Bowl.”
Birchard has begun to expand his circle of activism, finding even more organizations that are donating to and volunteering for relief efforts, including the news-making World Central Kitchen (WCK), a humanitarian nonprofit aimed at providing fresh meals for those in the midst of conflict. Head Chef of WCK, José Andrés, visited Veselka during a trip to New York where he was speaking at the United Nations. Andrés had breakfast at the restaurant with United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfeld, and according to Birchard, “insisted on having borscht.”
Like the comfort food Veselka offers, WCK provides a different kind of “comfort food” through its volunteers on the ground in conflict zones. According to its website, WCK’s creation “wasn’t just about feeding people in need—it was about listening, learning, and cooking side by side with the people impacted by the crisis. This is the real meaning of comfort food.”
Birchard emphasized the need to assist the Ukrainian refugees escaping to neighboring countries like Poland and Moldova, and the importance of getting “the basic supplies for women and children where there’s a desperate need for diapers and formula and canned goods.” Birchard explained that “[his] local church didn’t have enough people to stand on the doorstep and accept donations,” so Veselka, prepared in part due to their late hours, became a place where people could drop off donations.
Despite his new fundraising strategy, Birchard still maintains his relationship with Razom. “Whatever is in desperate need right now they are funding and advocating for, I’m helping them as best as I can,” he said.
A few years after the initial Russian invasion, Birchard has emphasized the persistent need to keep Ukraine in mind, adding that “[the community] can do [their] part too by obviously supporting us and eating here, but we [also] appreciate any emails or calls or just keeping Ukraine in your conversations.”
70 years after it first opened its doors, Veselka is as involved and connected as ever. A film about the restaurant, Veselka: A Rainbow on the Corner at the Center of the World, even hit movie theaters last year. According to Birchard, “It’s a feel-good story about how we all can play a small part in changing the tide of these horrific events that are playing out.”
“In crisis, people do amazing things,” Birchard maintains. “So again, [Veselka is] here to accept all those and also be an advocate for people doing what they can for Ukraine.”
