Chez Napoléon, a link to the Gallic culinary past of Hell's Kitchen, will say au revoir Jan. 31
Plus, catch up with the Retrologist Roadside Roundup
When it comes to classic French restaurants in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen, long a cradle of this culinary tradition, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.
Of course, there has been a lot of “taketh” over the past few decades, as the once-plentiful French places closed one by one.
More recently, the “giveth” part came in 2024, when Le Tout Va Bien, a late 1940s stalwart, reopened under new ownership after a four-year pandemic-era closure.
Now, the “taketh” part is upon us again, and it’s a doozy: Chez Napoléon, which has been in business since 1960 and run by the Bruno family for much of that time, announced it will close on Saturday, Jan. 31. It’s a sad end to a restaurant that triumphantly returned after an extended closure over a gas line problem a few years ago.
Both of these old-school restaurants are among the last neighborhood throwbacks to another era in New York dining, a time when French cuisine was synonymous with fine dining and fancy dining rooms. But neither of these restaurants is particularly fancy, snooty, or haute. They are intimate, cozy, comfortable bistros — an oasis against the rapidly changing world swirling just outside.
Specifically, they are directly linked to an era when French restaurants abounded in this neighborhood, when it was an outpost of Paris, trading the Seine for the Hudson. The restaurants thrived in this area, the lore goes, to serve the French ocean liners that disembarked at the nearby piers, flooding the West Side with tourists looking for a taste of home.
According to the restaurant’s official history, Chez Napoléon opened in September 1960, with “Mr. Despaux” at the helm. His alleged Napoléonesqe short temper provided the name.
The space is unique, a combination of two former businesses on the site — a shuttered tailor shop and a French restaurant, La Gerb D’Or. This explains the twin dining rooms at Chez Napoléon.
The loss of Chez Napoléon does not shock me. This is hardly a scientific assessment, but every time I’ve passed of late, the place had seemed empty. It’s both reassuring and frustrating that, now that its closure is at hand, those dining rooms will be bustling up to the last hour.
If only we could apply that collective zeal to supporting these restaurant relics when they are not already in hospice. It must be something inherent in human nature — we just take things for granted, even those things we know are precious and vulnerable.
I’ll have more on the fate of Chez Napoléon in a future dispatch, as I’ll be dining there with friends later this week. Yep, I’ll be among those saying farewell, and I’ll readily admit it has been much too long since I had dined there. Count me among those who took this gem for granted.
My memories of French cuisine in this neighborhood date back to the late and much-lamented Rene Pujol (no relation), which opened the year I was born and closed in February 2008, felled in part by a Broadway strike.
When I was a kid growing up in Westchester County’s Sleepy Hollow country, I was a habitue of Books & Things, a cute and much-missed bookstore on Broadway in Tarrytown. Whenever I’d order a book there (they rarely had what my curious young mind wanted to read), the proprietor would call me Rene. I’d gently correct him, and he’d then excuse himself by saying he patronized a French restaurant in Manhattan called Rene Pujol.
When I was in my 20s and unsteadily launched into adulting, I finally did go to Rene Pujol a few times, and the waiters eventually paid heed to my surname — but no discounts were ever offered, as I had long fantasized.
C'est la vie.
City Sidewalks: Barbetta’s warm glow
A few blocks from Chez Napoléon is the wonderful Barbetta, a Theater District standby serving Northern Italian food since 1906. As one of our oldest restaurants, it should come as no surprise that it has one of our oldest signs, circa 1931, the letters crafted out of backlit opal glass, the only sign of its kind extant in New York City. Learn more about opal glass signage — and where you can find it — at roadarch.com.
Had this sign been constructed just a few years later, it likely would have been neon, which replaced opal glass as the go-to technology for grand illuminated signage.
Note the interesting sign, below, for the San Carlos Apts in Tucson, Arizona. It has an echo of Barbetta’s, and note how the word APTS is still in opal glass, while SAN and CARLOS are set in neon.
Retrologist Roundside Roundup
Sign News …
The beloved “Shopping Cart Lady” has returned to the Playmakers parking lot at 2299 W. Grand River Ave. in Okemos, Michigan, but with an LED facelift. (H/T Debra Jane Seltzer.)
That was fast. Weeks after Anheuser-Busch announced the beer giant was closing its Newark, New Jersey, plant, the 35,000-pound neon eagle sign that was an icon for decades has flown the coop for Bud’s hometown of St. Louis. The sign was installed in 2001, a replica of one that dated to 1951. The 450 employees are being offered roles at other Anheuser-Busch facilities across the United States. While there are other small breweries left in Newark, once known for beermaking, the loss of the AB plant marks a true end of an era. "Newark was the seventh in the nation when it came to state production of beer, 2.5 million barrels of beer a year," NJIT history professor Neil Maher told ABC7. "It was one of the major industries of this city."
The shuttered Alioto’s, a mainstay of San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf for a century, is being demolished, and the iconic fish-shaped turquoise neon sign has been taken down. The property will be cleared for a public plaza, and one can only hope the sign will come back into view.
Blowing my stack — but not in anger! The Uncle Bill’s Pancake House neon sign returns to the St. Louis, Missouri, restaurant with chasing illumination and a fresh new stack of pancakes! (The earlier iteration of the sign had a cocktail glass.) That’s a win for the pancake house, which had closed in 2024 and is being brought back to life by Garcia Properties.
This is one of those bedeviling head scratchers. The original “Dancing Kids” Tower Records neon sign in Sacramento was mysteriously taken down a couple of years ago, reportedly after part of it fell off. It stood above the site of an old drug store, now the Tower Cafe, where Russ Solomon first sold records, and the vaunted Tower Records music chain was born. The sign was placed in the offices of the Tower District, a local business group that’s in the same complex as the cafe. The story is complicated, and I suggested you read the Sacramento Bee piece. But real quick: The sign has been restored for over $50,000, but supposedly cannot be put back up. But a non-identical $90,000 replica that has been constructed CAN be. A feverish (and legal) debate now surrounds the decision of what sign will see the light of day in that prominent perch — the original or replica. (I mean, I say figure out how to display the old one again and keep the new one in the office. Just saying …)
Comings …
The beloved Rosie’s Diner, once in Little Ferry, New Jersey, and home of the famous Bounty paper-towel commercials with Nancy “Rosie” Walker, is on the move again. After its time in the Garden State ended in 1990, the diner was moved by an artist to Algoma Township in western Michigan, and is now in new hands and is about to move again, this time in Alabama. It had been sitting shuttered since 2011. What a relief that it now has a future again, with plans to reopen within the year, restored to its 1946 look when it was known as the Silver Dollar Diner. It acquired the Rosie’s name after the smash success of the Bounty commercials, which aired in the 1970s and 1980s. They are the reason I still buy Bounty. (Oh, and Bounty really is the best … I was not paid to say that!)
Coney Island’s historic Totonno’s Pizzeria is on the market! This is the opportunity of a lifetime for the right person. The third-generation family members want to sell after over 100 years of ownership, but they want to make sure the buyers keep Tononno’s the same as it ever was.
This could just as well go under “goings.” Bethel, Connecticut’s beloved Sycamore Drive-in has closed — but now could reopen. Let’s hope so. A pioneering drive-in, it opened back in 1948 and has changed ownership numerous times. And over in Southern California, the historic Original Saugus Cafe announced it was closing, then reopening, and now it may reopen, but with a different name? The cafe opened 139 years ago and was Los Angeles County’s oldest continually operated restaurant.
A year after unexpectedly closing, Manhattan’s Absolute Bagels is back in business with almost the same name. The old space was shuttered amid gut-churning Department of Health violations, but the new restaurant has no connection to the old operators; some familiar faces are still working at the shop, though.
… And Goings
Detroit’s oldest family business, Dittrich Furs, has closed after over 132 years. Back in the day, their commercials were iconic, leading to parodies, below. It had been in the same family since day one, and at its current location since 1965.
The Haygood Skating Center in Virginia Beach is closing after 52 years.
I wanted to pay tribute to Mitchell’s, a wonderful old-school soul-food place in the Prospect Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn. I so loved passing its gorgeous weathered sign when I lived in the neighborhood. I’m sad their story is now at an end. It closed last year but I only learned of its demise recently. Sigh …
I love a good Spaghetti Warehouse — Syracuse has lost theirs after over 40 years. In a transition that speaks to the times, a podcast studio will replace it. The good news is that the kitschy furniture will stay — and I’m sure you can bring in some spaghetti takeout to complete the look.
Schaller’s Drive-in in Irondequoit, New York, is for sale. The Ridge Road location dates to 1959. A location in Brighton closed in 2024.
Sad to see a skating rink close, but the activity keeps rolling on for those, like me, who dig it. Your writing is impeccable, and your attention to human stories within the built environment is one of the things "the Lord giveth." Thanks!
First French restaurant I ever ate at. My Grandparents took me there in 1966. I was six. I have eaten there countless times since but last time was just before the Pandemic. I vowed to go back once I saw the gas line nonsense was finally over but, alas, I will be unable to. It’s warmth will be missed on a chilly NY winter’s night.