‘NoHo Star’ to Shutter this December After 32 Years

NoHo Star, March 2012

Another loss that cuts pretty deep.

NoHo Star, the casual corner restaurant at Bleecker and Lafayette Streets is about to close for good. It’s been keeping the community in meals since 1985.

It won’t last the winter, though. Jeremiah at Vanishing New York reports that the NoHo Star and its sister restaurant, Temple Bar, will both close down at the end of the year. The current owners reportedly filed a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) with the New York State Department of Labor, indicating plans to lay off its staff of 54 workers and end service on December 31.

Both the NoHo Star and Temple Bar were founded by a 1930s German-Jewish emigre named George Schwarz. He began his New York restaurant tenure four decades later in 1973 with Elephant and Castle in Greenwich Village.

(The NoHo itself was briefly featured in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles live action movie in 1990.)

This neighborhood, formerly nicknamed “Gasoline Alley” is undergoing a seismic shift. High-end office developments, deep-pocket retail, and unaffordable condos are taking over.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, 1990