FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM JUNE 27, 2019 • THE QUEENS COURIER 11
Shalimar Diner spared wrecking ball, ex-Met helps
BY BILL PARRY
bparry@schnepsmedia.com
@QNS
Former New York Mets bad boy Lenny
“Nails” Dykstra has joined a new team
hoping to grant the shuttered Shalimar
Diner in Rego Park a new lease on life on
Long Island.
Th e beloved eatery permanently closed
its doors last year aft er 45 years when the
property and an adjoining lot were sold in
a $6.5 million all-cash deal with developers.
In April, Rego-Forest Preservation
Council founder and chairman Michael
Perlman launched an eff ort to fi nd a taker
for the classic structure for zero dollars
and move it to a new location before the
wrecking ball arrives.
Enter Dykstra, the star outfi elder on the
1986 World Champion Mets squad and
three-time all-star with the Philadelphia
Phillies. He joined forces with Manhattan
attorney Ronald Hariri and Perlman to
relocate the Shalimar Diner to Riverhead,
Long Island, where it would likely reopen
as a brewery and diner.
“Similar to Nails, the Shalimar Diner is
a piece of Queens and New York City history,”
Courtesy of Michael Perlman
The exterior of the now-shuttered Shalimar Diner in Rego Park.
Hariri said. “We are working with
an architect.”
Hariri said he was raised on egg creams
at the Shalimar when he lived in Forest
Hills near Perlman, the preservationist
and historian.
“Th ese places are cultural cornerstones
of the neighborhood but they’ve become
an endangered species,” Perlman said. “It’s
really sad and disheartening now how
much land costs around here. Th e structure
is prefabricated and manufactured to
be easy to move.”
Hariri and Dykstra will funds the moving
costs and it will be transported by a
professional diner rigger. Perlman became
known as “Th e Diner Man” aft er he
achieved success by sparing other classic
diners such as SoHo’s Moondance Diner
and Midtown Manhattan’s Cheyenne
Diner by brokering deals to have them
transported to new locations.
It is not clear when the Shalimar Diner
will be removed from its 63-68 Austin St.
location.
“I became a preservationist in 2005
when a demolition crew took a jackhammer
to the art deco ticket booth at the
Trylon Th eater on Queens Boulevard,”
Perlman recalled. “Th e Shalimar was
another ultimate public institution now
facing oblivion.”
Dykstra, meanwhile, is looking to preserve
his reputation aft er several brushes
with the law over the years including
charges of indecent exposure, DUI,
grand theft auto, bankruptcy fraud, sexual
assault and writing bad checks. Dykstra
made headlines recently for searching for
his lost dentures in a New Jersey dumpster
for nine hours with his friend, tag-team
wrestler nicknamed Sprinkles the Clown,
that he chronicled on his Twitter feed.
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