Tired and hungry in SoHo, a friend recommended we head to Fanelli's Cafe for some greasy eats. By appearance, it's your standard New York pub complete with red and white checkered table cloths, serving better than average pub fare, including some tasty burgers. We were seated in the "Ladies & Gents sitting room", or the back room, past the end of the bar. Toward the end of our meal, two elderly gentlemen walked into the room and one, bearing a striking resemblance to Mark Twain, pointed toward the corner behind us and told the other, "the men's room used to be there." Curious to know more the history of Fanelli's and the menu's "since 1847" claim, I checked to see what, if anything, The Historic Shops & Restaurants of New York had to say about the cafe and learned the following:
By the Civil War, luxury hotels and fashionable emporia. . . did a brisk business along the stretch of the thoroughfare that passed through what a century and half later would come to be known as SoHo. . . A five story brick building at the corner Mercer and Prince Street was typical, with a porterhouse in its storefront and an expensive brothel upstairs. It had replaced a more modest wooden structure that housed a grocer and spirits dealer as far back as 1847 -- a genealogy that allows Fanelli's Cafe on the site today to call itself "the second oldest continuous food and drink establishment on the same site in New York."
From 1878 to 1902 it was a saloon run by Nicholas Gerdes, "whose name is etched in the glass transom above the entrance." Michael Fanelli took over ownership of the bar in 1922 and it stayed in the family until 1982 (now owned by the Noe family). The Historic Shops & Restaurants of New York tells us:
Calling his place a cafe was a smart move in 1922, at the start of Prohibition. . . The speakeasy made wine and distilled bathtub gin in the cellar, and purchased hard booze from bootleggers, keeping the stash in a secret room -- which can still be reached through one of the lower cupboards in the elaborately carved backbar -- hidden under the stairs.
PaperMag accurately describes Fanelli's as "A bastion of realness and history incongruously plopped among Prada superstores and boutique hotels, Fanelli's is a New York treasure." If you're in the neighborhood, it's worth stopping by for a beer at this former speakeasy and "second oldest continuous food and drink establishment on the same site in New York."
Fanelli's Cafe
94 Prince St. at Mercer St.
212-226-9412
Reviews: AOL City Guide, Citysearch, NYMetro
