The Coffee Shop

In 1990 three former Wilhelmina models, Charles Milite, Eric Petterson and Carolyn Benitez, opened the Coffee Shop on Union Square West: a Brazilian-influenced restaurant in an actual coffee shop, whose wonderfully generic neon sign they kept^{1, 2}. Accounts differ on what it replaced. Wikipedia says a diner called Nick's Coffee Shop; Eater says a coffee shop called Chase^{3, 4}. If Eater's right, the Chase bank on the corner today is a homecoming of sorts⁵.

It was open 23 hours a day, with model waitstaff, all-day breakfast and a reputation that drew celebrities, and Sex and the City filmed several scenes there^{2, 4, 6}. Its alumni include the politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez³. We gave the credit to the corner rather than the kitchen, and the corner never complained.

In July 2018 Milite announced the closing, blaming high rents, a rising minimum wage and a very large staff^{1, 6}. The Coffee Shop closed on October 14, 2018, after a final brunch and one last samba by Maucha Adnet^{4, 7}.

A Chase branch opened in December 2019 with a Joe Coffee attached, so the corner sells coffee again, and a by CHLOE took the old back dining room on 16th Street^{5, 8, 9}. Chase's branch manager made a point of telling people the famous sign wasn't the bank's; the landlord, it turned out, had secretly saved it^{10, 11}. On July 31, 2026, a new bar, Bernie and Herb's, opened in the Coffee Shop's former VIP room, and the neon is going back up above it^{2, 11}.