Christy's Diner at 522 Upper Court Street on Binghamton's East Side will shut its doors on Sunday, ending an eight-year run that began with founder Christy Lynn Mann and continued more than a year after her death. The closure arrives with no public explanation beyond a brief line from an employee about the building's lease.
According to WNBF, the diner was opened by Mann, who died in March 2025. Despite her death, Christy's Diner remained open, and an online post announcing the decision to close gave no explanation for the move, the station reported. The diner's owner declined to speak with a reporter, but an employee told WNBF plainly, “the lease is up and we're closing.”
A Diner Built on Decades of Experience
Mann's path to opening her own restaurant ran through another longtime Binghamton institution. Per her obituary from Sunset Memorial Services, she spent more than 20 years working at Jane's Diner before striking out on her own in 2018, the same year she launched Christy's Diner on Upper Court Street.
That timing lined up with a change in ownership at the property itself. The site where the restaurant sits was acquired by Andrew Grigoli of Windsor in 2018, the same report notes. Grigoli had reportedly considered opening his own restaurant there when he bought the property, but his plans changed, and he leased the space out instead.
What Comes Next Is Unclear
With Christy's Diner set to close this weekend, Grigoli said he is unsure what will happen with the property afterward, leaving the future of the Upper Court Street storefront an open question for now.
The site has a long history of feeding Binghamton's East Side under different names. The Blue Beacon Diner opened at the location in 1950, housed in a stainless steel diner structure manufactured in New Jersey. In later years, the building was home to Conover's Diner, the Riverview Diner, and Niko's Diner before Mann took it over in 2018 — a string of owners stretching back more than seven decades at the same Court Street address.
