Colors was a 70-seat restaurant in the Lower East Side of

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

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. The

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on the

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destroyed the popular

Windows on the World Windows on the World was a complex of dining, meeting, and entertainment venues on the top floors (106th and 107th) of the North Tower (Building One) of the original World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan. It included a restaurant calle ...

restaurant, and, when many of its former workers remained unemployed a non-profit started a restaurant named Colors to employ them, while upgrading their skills.

2006-2017

Former employees of the Windows on the World restaurant opened Colors in 2006, with the support of the non-profit

Restaurant Opportunities Center The Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC) is a not-for-profit organization and worker center with affiliates in a number of cities across the United States. Its mission is to improve wages and working conditions for the nation's low wage ...

. The restaurant closed its original location in 2017. ''

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'', and other publications, reported that ROC had problems fulfilling its ideals of worker empowerment, reporting difficulties like workers quitting over not being paid on time.

2019 reopening

Celebrated Cordon Bleu chef Sicily Sewell was hired to oversee the kitchen in a re-opened Colors in the fall of 2019. When the newly reopened restaurant was shutdown one month later Sewell was critical of management, who had failed to inform employees that they saw the reopening as a "test run".

References

{{coord, 40.72021, -73.98397, type:landmark_globe:earth_region:US-NY, display=title 2019 establishments in New York City 2010s in Manhattan Lower East Side Restaurants established in 2019 Defunct restaurants in Manhattan