How Brooklyn’s classic diners BOOTH
has brought Brooklyn diners
to a breaking point, forcing
several of the borough’s classic
greasy spoons to permanently
shutter, and leaving many others
Irene Siderakis, the owner of
Kellogg’s Diner in Williamsburg.
light fast, things are not going
to go well for me.”
Metropolitan and Union avenues
fi rst reported by PIX11 News
— has struggled to make up
for heavy losses accrued during
during government-mandated
shutdown orders, and Siderakis
a bad bout of the bug earlier
this year that put the diner
completely out of commission
for weeks.
the restaurateur said.
across the fi ve boroughs on
Sept. 30 for the fi rst time since
March with several safety precautions,
checks, and spacing tables six
feet apart — which gave some
hope to businesses in limbo
that they could see a possible
revenue bump.
relied heavily on the nocturnal
INSIDE
Your entertainment
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nearby bars or the G and L
trains for a late-night nosh,
but having to close at midnight
due to state regulations cuts
into the core of her business,
said Siderakis.
“Our overnight was the
heart and soul of this diner,”
she said. “Why can’t we open
at night, does corona bite you
at night?”
The general manager of another
hash haven down in Bay
Ridge said the limited hours
wiped out his crack-o’-dawn
customers who used to grab a
bite before work.
“We want to be open 24-7
because we have a good breakfast
and lunch crowd,” said
John Singh, who runs Bridgeview
Diner on Third Avenue.
Diners were a dying breed
well before the virus hit the
city due to increasing rents
and developers offering enticingly
large sums to buy their
property and air rights, leading
some fans to document the
surviving chrome-plated palaces
online.
The devastating effects of
the pandemic have only accelerated
their decline, with
longtime neighborhood favorites
dropping like fl ies, such as
Carroll Gardens Classic Diner
in Boerum Hill, Dizzy’s in
Park Slope, and the Floridian
in Flatlands.
While restaurants and
other small businesses have
suffered from COVID-induced
shortfalls across the board,
parts of what make diners special
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
The coronavirus pandemic
facing steep fi nancial challenges.
“I will have to fi le for bankruptcy,
there’s no doubt,” said
“If I don’t see any green
The decades-old eatery at
— whose troubles were
long stretches of operating
herself suffering from the
“I was lifeless on a couch,”
Indoor dining resumed
such as a quartercapacity
limit, temperature
Yet, pre-COVID, Kellogg’s
crowd spilling out from
have become their Achilles
heel, according to a borough
business guru.
“There’s some of these
unique aspects that have impacted
the diners disproportionately,”
said Brooklyn
Chamber of Commerce President
Randy Peers.
In a recent survey by the
Chamber, of the restaurants
who self-identifi ed as diners,
63 percent said they were
down in revenue between 15
and 50 percent from January
through August, compared to
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