Sarma Melngailis


Sarma Melngailis is the former owner and co-founder of Pure Food and Wine, a raw foodism restaurant in New York City, and the founder and CEO of One Lucky Duck. Both businesses closed in 2015 after staff walked out over unpaid wages and Melngailis was arrested for fraud in 2016 and convicted in 2017.

Background

Melngailis was born and raised in Newton, Massachusetts, and attended Newton North High School. Her early interest in food came from her mother, a professional chef. Her father was a physicist at MIT.
Melngailis graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1994 with a B.A. in Economics, and a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School. She moved to New York City, working at Bear Stearns until 1996, then moving to Bain Capital in Boston on private equity investment. She returned to New York City in 1998 and joined a high-yield investment fund at CIBC, but soon left to enroll at New York's French Culinary Institute from which she graduated in 1999.

Business

Together with her then-boyfriend chef, author, and speaker Matthew Kenney, she opened Commissary in 2001, but it closed in March 2003, after which she consulted for Jeffrey Chodorow's China Grill Management. With Chodorow and Kenney, Melngailis opened Pure Food and Wine in June 2004 as New York City's first upscale raw food restaurant. Located in Manhattan's Gramercy Park neighborhood, the restaurant was listed twice in New York magazine's “Top 100 Restaurants” and five years in a row in Forbes magazine's list of “All Star New York Eateries."
One Lucky Duck Juice and Takeaway is the name of the takeaway retail store attached to the restaurant, Pure Food and Wine. OneLuckyDuck.com, launched in 2005, is an online store for snacks prepared and packaged from her restaurant 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.
In 2014, One Lucky Duck Juice and Takeaway's first location outside of New York City opened in San Antonio, Texas.

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. This was the second time in a year a month's worth of wages had been withheld from employees, the first happening in July 2014.
On February 8, 2015, Melngailis addressed the walkout and closure in a blog post. She apologized for the incident, but her blog post was subsequently removed. In an interview with Well+Good, Melngalis said 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. During the ordeal, Melingailis provided employees a different explanation, blaming the situation on changing banks.
In April 2015, Pure Food and Wine, One Lucky Duck, and OneLuckyDuck.com reopened. A majority of staff did not return to the restaurant after its reopening.
Again in July 2015, the staff of Pure Food and Wine as well as One Lucky Duck walked out due to unpaid wages. The restaurant has been permanently shut down.

Arrest and guilty plea

On May 12, 2016, it was reported that Sarma and her then husband Anthony Strangis were arrested in Sevierville, Tennessee, after he ordered a pizza from Domino's Pizza. The couple were staying in separate hotel rooms.
It has been reported that "n addition to the fugitive from justice warrants, Strangis was wanted for grand larceny, scheme to defraud and violation of labor law. Melngailas was wanted for grand larceny, criminal tax fraud, scheme to defraud and violation of labor law."
On December 19, 2016, prosecutors offered Melngailis a plea deal in which she would agree to serve one to three years in prison. Melngailis' attorneys were reported by Vanity Fair to be planning a "coercive control" defense.
Melngailis pleaded guilty in May 2017 to stealing more than $200,000 from an investor, and scheming to defraud, as well as criminal tax fraud charges. She received a nearly four-month jail sentence. She filed for divorce from Strangis in May 2018.