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Westside Coffee Shop, a Latin Staple in Tribeca for Decades, Is Closing
Photo: Chris Crowley
If you were looking for it, you could find a nice plate of pernil on Church Street. You could have it with rice and soupy black beans, or a salad and plantains, and it could even be enough food to get you through a couple meals. This pork could be found at the Westside Coffee Shop. It was nothing crazy, but the people were sweet and generous, and it was a real place where customers could actually be regulars. Late in the afternoon yesterday, bachata played softly. The fridge was mostly cleared out, with a few sodas left. “Bye, everybody, thanks for everything,” one customer said on his way out. After 50 years, the lunch counter is closing today for the same reason as many others: The one-story building is getting razed so a developer can build something shinier. According to the owners, they’ll reopen in Ozone Park next year.
“It’s a place where everyone on the corner basically hangs out and sometimes works here,” says Ming Lin, an artist and writer who grew up going to Westside and co-founded the Canal Street Research Association. “It’s a nail in the coffin for Tribeca.” Last night, she helped organize a send-off for the restaurant and its staff.
The plan is to turn it into another luxury building, a far cry from Westside Coffee Shop — a place where people could actually afford to eat in one of Manhattan’s wealthiest neighborhoods. That pernil is $13. A Cuban sandwich is $12. It was also a familiar-looking place found around the city, a Latin lunch counter like Margon in midtown or the much-missed La Taza de Oro in Chelsea. The red formica countertop, the stainless steel, the menu of Cuban, Dominican, and Puerto Rican food alongside American and Mexican food — there was mango con queso, a cheeseburger deluxe smothered, burritos.
“It’s gonna be a big loss. Back to McDonald’s” says Susan Levine, who runs Church Street Surplus with her sister. During the winter, she says, they’d order the chicken soup every day. “I asked if I could get the chef who makes the chicken soup, but Johnny said no.”
As reported by Tribeca Citizen, Westside’s building — 323 Church Street — was one of several owned by local landlord Peter Matera, who died last year. Several of the Matera family’s other properties have been sold or are slated for development, including the one that houses Tribeca Pharmacy. Earlier this year, the Materas also sold another building on Lispenard, the home of the storied dive bar Nancy Whiskey Pub. It was bought by Joel Schreiber of Waterbridge Capital, with financing from Urban Standard Capital. Tribeca Citizen also reported the news, which caused alarm among readers, noting just last month that the bar was not closing. For now, anyway.
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