NoHo Star Closes this Weekend After 32 Years at Bleecker and Lafayette
Neither NoHo Star nor its sister establishment Temple Bar will survive the new year. Come this time next week, both will be out of business. The last day is pegged at December 31.
In the end, it was a thirty-two-year run for the NoHo Star. Diners can mark the somber occasion by dining on a special New Year’s menu.
Both the NoHo Star and Temple Bar were founded by a 1930s German-Jewish emigre named George Schwarz and his artist wife Kiki Kogelnik. Schwarz didn’t start his New York restaurant tenure until 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.)
We first learned of its demise back in October, shortly after the current owners reportedly filed a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification with the New York State Department of Labor, indicating plans to lay off its staff of 54 workers and end service
This place will definitely be missed. It’s becoming harder to find comfortable restaurants that serve a decent meal without all the pretentiousness. NoHo Star was one of those. The surrounding neighborhood, once nicknamed “Gasoline Alley,” is undergoing a seismic shift. High-end office developments, deep-pocket retail, and unaffordable condos are taking over.
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