From the Facebook page Old NYC Photo Dump comes this image of the Seven Seas Restaurant, Surf Avenue at West 16th Street, in 1985. I don’t know much about the long-gone restaurant, having never patronized it: but as it happens, I have sources that document it fairly well.
By the time I began exploring Coney Island in earnest in the 1990s, this site was a parking lot for trucks. But I noticed something on the sidewalk, on Surf Avenue and around the corner on West 16th: the name of the restaurant, and “Oyster Bar” set in brickface in the concrete sidewalk.
From a book I consulted heavily for Forgotten NY’s Coney Island pages, Charles Denson’s “Coney Island Lost and Found,” comes this view of the corner. The restaurant was in its heyday in 1973 and had been closed for quite awhile by 1985.
Earlier than that, in this Municipal Archives tax photo from 1940, the corner was home to Frank’s Bar and Grill.
Finally, by 2024, 1607 Surf Avenue, an apartment building containing market-rate and “affordable” units, had been completed, and all trace of the Seven Seas was history.
Check out the ForgottenBook, take a look at the gift shop. As always, “comment…as you see fit.” I earn a small payment when you click on any ad on the site.
2/23/26