TV Restaurants

What Happened to Mt. Ivy Café After Restaurant Stakeout? (Pomona, NY)

Closed verified

As of September 2026, Mt. Ivy Café has closed — confirmed via Yelp, June 2026.

Primary source
Yelp ·

Last verified

What the source shows: A Yelp business listing for this address is tagged CLOSED, with the page updated June 2026; no second independent source confirming a closure date was found within budget (single listing, human-reviewed; no second source).

  • Season / episode Season 1, Episode 3
  • Original air date
  • Address 14 Thiells Mount Ivy Rd Ste 2, Pomona, NY 10970

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Note on this show: Described as staged/scripted by Wikipedia's article, citing a 2012 realityblurred.com report. Surface this note on every record.

What happened after Restaurant Stakeout?

Restaurant Stakeout's third episode, "Find the Leader to Follow," which aired March 21, 2012, brought Willie Degel's hidden-camera crew to Mt. Ivy Café, an Italian and seafood restaurant in Pomona, New York. The show's format calls for surveillance footage of unsupervised staff, which Degel then uses to confront an owner and coach fixes to service, staffing, or menu problems. Mt. Ivy Café was one of three Rockland County restaurants featured in the show's early episodes, and its owner, Lucia Ivezaj, later gave one of the more detailed public accounts of how the series was put together: she told The Journal News in March 2012 that producers hired an actor to play a disruptive waiter, coached real staff on how to behave for the cameras, and had cast members change clothes repeatedly to fake the passage of time within a single shooting day. Wikipedia's article on Restaurant Stakeout describes the series as staged, citing that same 2012 realityblurred.com report, which is built substantially around Ivezaj's account. Mt. Ivy Café's Suite 2 storefront at 14 Thiells Mount Ivy Road no longer operates under that name; a Yelp business listing for the address is tagged "CLOSED," with the page last updated in June 2026. This location should not be confused with the separate Mount Ivy Diner on U.S. 202 a short distance away, which also recently changed hands. No second, independent source confirming an exact closure date was found within the research budget.

Featured on Restaurant Stakeout

Season / episode
Season 1, Episode 3
Original air date
Episode title
Find the Leader to Follow
What was featured
Italian and seafood restaurant; staged staff-drama incidents
Role
Featured restaurant
Name on the broadcast
Mt. Ivy Café

Frequently asked questions

Is Mt. Ivy Café still open in 2026?

As of September 2026, Mt. Ivy Café has closed — confirmed via Yelp, June 2026.

What happened to Mt. Ivy Café after Restaurant Stakeout?

Restaurant Stakeout's third episode, "Find the Leader to Follow," which aired March 21, 2012, brought Willie Degel's hidden-camera crew to Mt. As of September 2026, Mt. Ivy Café has closed — confirmed via Yelp, June 2026.

Is Mt. Ivy Café permanently closed?

As of September 2026, Mt. Ivy Café has closed — confirmed via Yelp, June 2026. We publish a closure only with a dated source behind it, and we say plainly when it has not been independently confirmed.

Where is Mt. Ivy Café located?

14 Thiells Mount Ivy Rd Ste 2, Pomona, NY 10970. That is the address on the record as of September 7, 2026.

What season and episode of Restaurant Stakeout featured Mt. Ivy Café?

Season 1, Episode 3 of Restaurant Stakeout, first aired March 21, 2012. The episode is titled “Find the Leader to Follow”.

Is Mt. Ivy Café still using the Restaurant Stakeout menu or branding?

The show's format calls for surveillance footage of unsupervised staff, which Degel then uses to confront an owner and coach fixes to service, staffing, or menu problems. Anything newer than our last check on September 7, 2026 may not be reflected here.

Every status on this site carries a confidence label and a date, and names the source it rests on. Read the Editorial & Corrections Policy for what each label means and how quickly we act on corrections. The questions above are generated from this record's own published fields — we never publish a question we cannot answer from the data.

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Visit info

Address
14 Thiells Mount Ivy Rd Ste 2, Pomona, NY 10970
Venue type
restaurant
Official website
None found

Businesses change fast. Always confirm directly with the restaurant — call ahead, or check its own current website or social media — before making plans around anything on this page.

Sources

  • realityblurred.com — https://www.realityblurred.com/realitytv/2012/03/food-network-restaurant-stakeout-fake/
  • Yelp — https://www.yelp.com/biz/mt-ivy-cafe-pomona

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