I think the first time I set food in the Great Jones Café would have been in about 1989. It had been open for a few years, by that point, but I remember ducking in there one night with some friends from SPIN (where I'd been interning at the time) and really feeling like I'd found the perfect downtown place to dine on my measly budget. Between the Great Jones Café, the Ludlow Street Cafe (back when it served Cajun food), the Cedar Tavern, a sushi place near St. Marks called Sharaku, a place called Texas on 16th Street off Union Square, the Cowgirl Hall of Fame in the West Village and a joint on Bleecker Street called the Manhattan Chili Company, most of my culinary needs were handily met.
You obviously see where this is going, right?
Well, of all those places above, only Sharaku (where I haven't been in years) and the Cowgirl Hall of Fame remain. As I understand it, tonight, the Great Jone Café joins the ranks of the vanished, according to my comrade E.V. Grieve.
Countless are the nights I remember sipping many a beer, tucking into the fare and enjoying the lovingly curated jukebox under the strings of Christmas lights and Mardi Gras beads on Great Jones Street. It was cool, affordable and welcoming. I don't recall every having anything less than an excellent time within its garish orange exterior. It breaks my heart that it's leaving.
But it's not surprising. Not anymore.
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