BY DENNIS LYNCH | After changing hands several times over the past few years, a formidable group of restaurateurs have cooked up their own plan to revive Chelsea’s iconic Empire Diner on 10th Ave. and W. 22nd St.
Celebrity chef John DeLucie and the partners behind Chelsea’s established comfort food dealer Cafeteria are renovating the landmarked diner, and plan to open its doors early next year.
Aesthetically, this Empire will look a lot like it did during its glory days, but the new proprietors hope to turn what was for decades a mostly “nocturnal” haute haunt into an around-the-clock destination.
“We’re trying to keep all the significant architectural elements of the space, but trying to make it a bit lighter and welcome and more comfortable,” said Mark Amadei, who co-owns Cafeteria. “As Chelsea has evolved, its gone from being a place where there was no lunch business to a place with a really vibrant daytime art gallery scene. Now there’s people coming from the High Line looking for places to eat, so we wanted it to be welcoming during the day and night.”
The owners have not yet set exact hours, but the Empire will be open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, seven days a week. They also more than doubled the size of the second-floor catering space to seat 35 people.
Amadei didn’t get into specifics about the menu, although he expects the burger to be a top seller. They will change parts of the menu seasonally, and he said people can expect “quality ingredients” and “comfort food from around the country.”
“We want to have a menu that’s going to be comfort food, with a good amount of options. I don’t want to say its similar to Cafeteria, but that’s what we do,” he said. “We’re looking to do a menu that is unpretentious, delicious comfort food, that is large enough to keep people engaged.”
Amadei and his team are the Empire’s fourth set of owners in the last seven years. The folks who renovated the circa-1946 diner in the late 1970s successfully turned the aging establishment into a destination for late-night revelers and celebrities, cementing it in New York City lore in the process.
Madonna, Steven Spielberg, and Julia Roberts were just some of the celebrities who stopped in for grub at the diner over the years, but the Empire’s reputation among celebrities, club-goers, construction workers, and its presence in tourist guidebooks couldn’t save it in 2009, when the owners lost the lease.
In 2010 it opened as the not-so-popular Highliner, but it closed in 2012. Celebrity chef Amanda Freitag opened it again as the Empire Diner in 2014, but closed shop within two years. Neither were highly-rated by customers or critics, and carried two-and-a-half and three-star Yelp ratings, respectively.
Amadei’s success in Chelsea with the long-standing and highly popular Cafeteria restaurant bodes much better for Empire’s future. The diner may be back for good, at least he thinks so.
“What we really want to be is a neighborhood place; it’s really about bringing the comfort back to the Empire Diner,” Amadei said. “Chelsea is the coolest neighborhood in the city, and West Chelsea is just starting to come into its own. We want to be the neighborhood watering hole.”
