Neighborhood Haunts

My friend Erika, a true-blue native New Yorker, told me recently that you know you’ve lived in New York a long time when you can chronicle the different restaurants that have occupied a single building. So it’s official: I’ve lived in New York City a long time.

This became painfully clear to me when I returned to Manhattan after three weeks in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. I decided on my drive north that my first meal would be a burger and a beer at my favorite neighborhood haunt, the All State Café, tucked between West End Avenue and Broadway on 72nd Street. My reaction was complete disbelief when I heard that All State closed while I was gone. After 40 years, the owner and landlord couldn’t come to an agreement on a new lease, and a kitchen fire accelerated the end of an establishment that became quietly famous for sustaining once-struggling actors like Kevin Bacon and for being the location where the film Mr. Goodbar was shot.

You may never have enjoyed All State’s specific food or atmosphere, but you know a similar place in your own hometown—somewhere you go for first dates, to console a friend, to bring out-of-town family, or comfortably sit alone at the bar to enjoy a drink and good music on the jukebox. It’s a place that represents the people who love it—it’s laid back, reliable, warm. It’s the sure-thing at the end of a list of eating options. And it’s secretly your first choice, even when you feel should try somewhere new or exciting.

Months later, I still feel a pang when I walk by the now shutdown spot that was once a recurring part of my New York life. The sign remains but the empty interior is ghostly. Maybe it will open somewhere else, but it will never be the same. True to form, a new restaurant will take its place amid high expectations. But those of us who knew and loved All State will always remember the building as the place that housed our favorite neighborhood haunt.