What is "veselka"

Veselka is a Ukrainian 24-hour restaurant in New York City’s East Village.

It was established in 1954 by post- World War II Ukrainian refugees Wolodymyr and Olha Darmochawal and is one of the last of the many Slavic restaurants that once proliferated the neighborhood. A cookbook, published in October 2009 by St. Martin’s Press, highlights more than 120 of the restaurant’s Eastern European recipes.

A sister restaurant, Veselka Bowery, on East 1st Street and Bowery, opened in November 2011.

Veselka is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:

• Chris Veselka (born 1970), American soccer player
• Stefan Veselka (born 1968), Norwegian classical pianist and conductor