The towering vertical neon sign that once marked Coffee Shop, the model-staffed Union Square restaurant that closed nearly three decades after it opened, is coming back to the same block. It will be reinstalled and illuminated above Bernie and Herb's, a new neighborhood bar that opened in part of the old Coffee Shop footprint at 28 East 16th Street.
The sign's return was reported by Time Out, which noted that the building's landlord saved the sign after Coffee Shop shut down in 2018 and has now offered it to Bernie and Herb's, with permission to reinstall it on the building. Once building scaffolding comes down, the sign will go back up at the corner of Union Square West and East 16th Street — the same spot it occupied for years — with Bernie and Herb's name added to the top.
According to the dossier's historical record, that neon sign actually predates the restaurant most people associate it with. It originally hung outside Chase Coffee Shop, a mid-century diner that operated at 29 Union Square West from the 1950s through the 1980s, as The Village Sun has reported. Floor inlays from that original diner turned up during 2019 construction work when Chase Bank moved into the corner space — a coincidence local historians flagged at the time, since the bank that ultimately replaced Coffee Shop shares a name with the very diner that inspired it.
From Model Waitstaff to a Neighborhood Dive
Coffee Shop opened in 1990 as a Brazilian-influenced restaurant and quickly became a downtown fixture known for its model, actor and artist waitstaff, all-day breakfast, late-night hours and recurring appearances on HBO's Sex and the City, per Time Out. The Village Voice previously reported that the restaurant was founded by former Wilhelmina fashion models Charles Milite, Eric Petterson and Carolyn Benitez, and that it ran for 28 years as a downtown hotspot before closing in 2018.
That closure came down to economics. Milite told EV Grieve in 2018 that rent alone ate up nearly 27% of gross revenues, and an approaching $2-per-hour state minimum wage increase would have tacked on roughly $46,000 a month in payroll costs across the restaurant's 150 employees. He pointed to that math as evidence that large, 200-to-300-seat restaurants were becoming unsustainable in New York City, a case study in the pressures that have squeezed out other big-footprint Manhattan dining institutions.
A Corner Carved Into Smaller Storefronts
After Coffee Shop closed, landlord GFP Real Estate subdivided the 29 Union Square West building into four separate retail spaces, eventually leasing the main corner to Chase Bank alongside a Joe Coffee outlet in late 2019, according to 6sqft. The 28 East 16th Street storefront that now houses Bernie and Herb's had its own chapter in between: it operated as an outpost of the vegan chain By CHLOE starting in December 2019, occupying what had been Coffee Shop's back dining room, with a dedicated entrance off Union Square Park.
Bernie and Herb's, which opened July 31, now sits specifically in what was once Coffee Shop's VIP room, per the seed reporting. The bar comes from David Goldberg, Dakota Pollock and Jose Beltre. Goldberg is a childhood friend of the building's landlord, while Pollock and Beltre both previously worked at the Lower East Side dive bar 169 Bar — Pollock as a bartender and manager, Beltre on staff.
Dive Bar Prices in a High-Rent Neighborhood
That 169 Bar pedigree shows up throughout the new space, which features illuminated palm trees and a jukebox stocked with 45-rpm records for spinning old favorites. It also shows up in the pricing: plain hot dogs run $3, loaded versions start at $6, and a pulled pork sandwich costs $10. Draft beers start at $8, well drinks run $9, and a beer-and-shot combo also costs $9, with most drinks on the menu priced below $11.
Happy hour, which runs until 7 p.m., drops well drinks, draft beers and the beer-and-shot deal to $7 apiece. Bernie and Herb's is currently open from 2 p.m. to midnight, though Pollock has said he hopes to extend hours until 2 a.m. Whether that extension gets approved, and exactly when the restored sign goes up once the building's scaffolding comes down, remain open questions for now.
