Long Island Restaurant

The sadly shuttered Long Island Restaurant on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn is finally reopening after being closed since 2007. Want ads have popped up on Craigslist seeking a General Manager and a Head Chef.



The ads say: "We are restoring the Long Island Bar, an iconic corner spot in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. Operated by one family since the 1950s, the Long Island Bar is a neighborhood landmark."

For the manager, they want "someone whose energy to deal with broken parts and disappointed humans is unflagging." And they're looking for a chef "who can craft a small, tight menu--uncommonly delicious, but neither showy in nature or size," someone whose "single-minded goal is simple, great, focused food" and who is "into the idea of reducing the labor and stress involved in oversized and overcomplicated menus."

Does that mean the place will still be a comfy diner serving inexpensive dishes like "hamburgers (onions raw or fried), meatloaf, chicken soup, fresh-cut French fries" unchanged since 1951? Or will it be yet another upscale simulation of a once unpretentious classic? (See Fedora, Minetta, Rocco's, Vesuvio, CBGB, Bill's Gay 90s, Waverly Inn, Lion, and Monkey Bar...)
 

photo by James & Karla Murray (read more)

Brooklyn Paper reported in October 2011 that the Alperin family was renting the place to a new and undisclosed tenant. “We want to see life come back,” said Linda Alperin. “It’s very sad to see it closed up. Everyone loves it and wants it to stay the same.” She told the paper that the new restaurateur "agreed to keep the broken neon sign--and hopefully fix it, the Art Deco bar and some of the old interiors."

This past December, Eater spotted a liquor license application on the door with the name of a bartender "often credited as the creator of the popular cosmopolitan cocktail."

On that subject, the bartender once told The Observer: “When I got it, the cosmo was like a really crappy kamikaze, you know, dyed red. I just turned it into a sour. Really, it’s nothing but a vodka sour with a little dash of cranberry to make it pink, albeit a really well-made sour with Cointreau...”