Fanelli's

Food and drink have been sold at 94 Prince Street, under various owners, since 1847, and it's considered the city's second-oldest food-and-drink establishment in the same spot¹. It took a while to settle: two years as a saloon, a year as a grocery again, then back to a saloon in 1867¹.

Harry Green ran it as the Prince Cafe from 1905 to 1922, and it carried on as a speakeasy through Prohibition¹. In 1922 Michael Fanelli bought it and renamed it Fanelli Cafe¹. His family sold it in 1982 to Hans Noë, and the Noës kept the name and the red neon sign^{1, 2}. Around 2000 Noë passed it on to his younger son, Sasha¹. The artist Chuck Close was a regular, and so were the boxer Rocky Graziano and Bob Dylan¹.

When we listed it, we liked the decently priced beer and the comfortable room low on pretense, and wondered whether we were really in SoHo. On March 16, 2020, the last night the city allowed dine-in service, it pulled down its graffitied gates³. About two and a half months later it reopened for takeout, food and booze³. The sidewalk seating it expanded during the pandemic stayed, and by 2023 The Infatuation found that a place long among the least pretentious meals in SoHo had turned into a scene⁴.

In September 2026 a reviewer called it a SoHo legend, with draft beer at throwback prices⁵. We still wonder whether we're in SoHo.