There are only two places in New York City where my picture hangs on the walls. The Cheyenne Diner and the Blarney Rock, both in midtown Manhattan and both steps away from where I used to work, WABC radio. Today my picture hangs in just one of those places.
The Cheyenne Diner has closed its doors after 68 years at the corner of 33rd and 9Th in Manhattan. Nearly every morning for 11 years, the morning staff at WABC would order delivery from the Cheyenne. I'm not quite sure why we ordered from them time and time again. The food was nothing special, unless you order their Greek specialties and they constantly screwed up our orders. But, we kept ordering from them, time and time again.
I think it has to do with nostalgia. We just wanted to be part of the lore and history of that place, a classic old style silver diner. If those walls could talk.
Spiros Kasimis has been running the place for as long as I've been going there. Any morning you could walk in and hear WABC blaring in the background. That makes sense, because at the Cheyenne, you don't go there to listen to background music. It's a much more engaging place then that. It starts with Spiros who's got an opinion on everything.
I'm not working at WABC anymore, but I bet the guys in the morning over there had no idea that the Cheyenne had closed until they picked up the phone and found out there was nobody there to take their order of two eggs easy over.
George,
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more with the vast majority of your comments. As poor as the delivery service was though, the dine-in service was terrific. Curtis, John Tabacco, Kyle O'Brien and I weent there Friday for one final lunch and spent much of Friday and Monday mourning its departure. Hopefully though, for all of us who enjoy "The Blarney Rock", this isn't some concerted effort to shut down places that have your picture on them.
Let the search for a new diner begin.