SADLY the Narrows Coffee Shop closed in 2020, and I only had the pleasure of eating there once. At #10001 4th Avenue, it’s one of a handful of addresses in Brooklyn with a 5-digit house number, as Bay Ridge has a 100th and 101st Street. Other 5-digit house numbers can be found in Brooklyn, but they’re as far away from Bay Ridge as they can be in Brooklyn, way out in Canarsie, where you will find East 100th through 108th Streets.
The Narrows Coffee Shop opened in 1966 and found almost immediate competition from the Tiffany Diner, which was across the street at 4th Avenue and 99th Street and opened in 1968. The Narrows outlasted the Tiffany, though, which closed in 2007 and was replaced by a TD Bank. Saturdays were shopping days in my household and when shopping and housework were done, father, mother, grandmother and I would frequent a number of area restaurants on 86th Street including the Green Tea Room. Tiffany was in the rotation, so I must have eaten there dozens of times.
10001 4th Avenue in 1940. A grocery shop would occupy the ground floor where the Narrows Coffee Shop would open 26 years later.
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9/26/22
5 comments
Thanks for posting this Kevin ! I resided across the street from it, and used to go there with my mother & paternal grandmother. Such fond memories. Their food was amongst the best I had anywhere in NYC. How many other wood-frame structures exist on 4 Avenue ? I recall the “Hollywood Flats” across 100 Street that were razed in about 1985 to make room for the 6-story residential building. I’m very disgusted about the loss of Tiffany’s, and overdevelopment in general. That was another one of my frequents.
According to the owner it closed because of the difficulty finding staff, not Covid.
It illustrates the difference between stand-up jobs (labor shortages) and sit-down jobs (100’s of fully qualified applicants for every opening).
I have had lunch with my Nana there many times, Nana is gone now for many years, thanks for the memories
Still trying to find out if there’s any relation between this Narrows coffee shop, and the one that existed at the head of 71st St., and third Avenue… That was indeed a “narrow” store(half a storefront! I remember going there in the 60s through early 70s. Or were they just two businesses with the same name?
early 70s, I believe.
I ate there often when I lived at 419 101st Street. I seem to remember it being in a movie that featured Danny DeVito sometime after I moved from the neighborhood in 1996.