Sarma Melngailis

Sarma Melngailis (born September 10, 1972) is an American chef, cookbook author, businesswoman and convicted criminal. She was the owner and co-founder of Pure Food and Wine and One Lucky Duck, both vegan raw food restaurants in New York City.[1][2] Melngailis' restaurant appeared in New York Magazines Top 100 Restaurants round up, and made it into Forbes list of All Star New York Eateries for five consecutive years.[3] Both businesses closed in 2016 after staff walked out over unpaid wages. After fleeing New York with husband Anthony Strangis, Melngailis was tracked down in Tennessee and arrested in 2016. She pleaded guilty in 2017 to grand larceny, scheming to defraud, and criminal tax fraud. She admitted stealing over $2 million from investors and employees. She spent nearly four months in jail.

Early life and education

Sarma Melngailis was born September 10, 1972, in the United States, and was raised in Newton, Massachusetts. Melngailis's father John Melngailis was born in Riga, Latvia and was a physicist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Career

Restaurants

Together with chef, author, and speaker Matthew Kenney, her then-boyfriend,[7][8] she opened Commissary in 2001, but it closed in March 2003, after which she consulted for Jeffrey Chodorow's China Grill Management.

In June 2004, Melngailis with Chodorow and Kenney, opened Pure Food and Wine as New York City's first upscale raw food restaurant.[9][10][11][12][13] Located in Manhattan's Gramercy Park neighborhood, the restaurant was listed twice in New York magazine's "Top 100 Restaurants" and in "The Platt 101"[14] and five years in a row in Forbes magazine's list of "All Star New York Eateries."[15] In 2009, Melngailis believed that Kenney gave inadequate attention to the financial side of the Pure Food and Wine operation; Chodorow, taken by the strength of her business school and financial background, expelled Kenney from the operation and lent Melngailis US$2.1million to buy the business outright.[16][17]

The trio opened One Lucky Duck Juice and Takeaway in 2007,[18] a takeaway retail store attached to Pure Food and Wine. The website OneLuckyDuck.com, launched in 2005, was an online store for snacks prepared and packaged from Pure Food and Wine, as well as ingredients, skincare, supplements, books, apparel, and home products, all related to raw and organic living. A second One Lucky Duck location was open in New York City's Chelsea Market from December 2009 through January 2015.[19]

From 2014 until July 2016, One Lucky Duck Juice and Takeaway operated in San Antonio, Texas, the first location outside of New York City.[20][21]

Controversy

In January 2015, Pure Food and Wine and One Lucky Duck staff walked out en masse due to Melngailis' failure to pay employees a month's worth of owed wages.[22] This was the second time within a year that a month's worth of wages had been withheld, the first being in July 2014.[23]

Melngailis addressed the walkout and subsequent closure of both restaurants in a blog post posted in February 2015.[24] She apologized for the incident, but later deleted the post. In an interview with Well+Good, Melngailis stated that the delayed wages were due to slim margins caused by debts and expensive ingredients, and that she had also previously missed her own rent payments.[25] During the ordeal, Melngailis provided employees with a different explanation, blaming the situation on changing banks.[26]

In April 2015, Pure Food and Wine, One Lucky Duck, and OneLuckyDuck.com reopened.

birth date	September 10, 1972
citizenship	American, Latvian
education	University of Pennsylvania (BS, BA) French Culinary Institute
prevrests	* Commissary, New York City (2001–2003), * Pure Food and Wine, New York City (2004–2016), * One Lucky Duck Juice and Takeaway, New York City (2007–2015), * One Lucky Duck, Chelsea Market, New York City (2009–2015), * One Lucky Duck Juice and Takeaway, San Antonio, Texas (2014–2016)
spouse	Anthony Strangis (m. 2012-2018)
known for	Restaurateur (2001–2015), Fugitive, convicted of fraud (2015–2017)
website	http://www.sarmaraw.com

Early life and education

Career

Restaurants

Controversy

Arrest and guilty plea

List of restaurants

Bibliography

External links

References