Tom's Restaurant
American restaurant · Morningside Heights
2880 Broadway, New York, NY 10025
Highlights
Tom’s is an iconic Upper West Side diner, famed for its Seinfeld facade, classic comfort eats, cozy booths, and chill East Coast vibes.
Tom’s is an iconic Upper West Side diner, famed for its Seinfeld facade, classic comfort eats, cozy booths, and chill East Coast vibes.
"There’s more to this classic diner than its feature in Seinfeld, even though the walls are covered with Kramer cutouts and other memorabilia. Since the ’40s, it’s been a quiet corner retreat for students and neighborhood folks, with high-backed red vinyl booths and $7 mimosas (or house wine). The affordable diner food usually hits the spot, and there are often just-exciting-enough weekly specials like roast leg of lamb. It’s a perfect place to sit at the counter with a book, get distracted by SVU on the TV, and drink endless coffee refills." - willa moore, sonal shah, neha talreja, will hartman
"Coffee: $3.25 Naturally, there's a lot of Seinfeld memorabilia inside this Morningside Heights diner, which dates back to the 1940s, but there's also currency from around the world (courtesy Columbia student regulars), $7 mimosas, and deep red booths that are great for gossiping in. The coffee refills are optimized for crunch-time study sessions, and the specials, like a noodle-filled chicken soup, are worth trying." - willa moore, molly fitzpatrick, will hartman, bryan kim, neha talreja, sonal shah
"Tom’s was the ostensible location for dozens of scenes from Seinfeld, referred to as Monk’s. But the interior is more mazelike than the sets for the TV show, with rows of booths and plenty of counter seating. The menu runs to the usual, but if you’re trying to replicate George’s order from the episode aired May 19, 1994 (“The Opposite”), you’ll find that you can get chicken salad on untoasted rye, but you won’t be able to get the potato salad, because Tom’s doesn’t serve it." - Melissa McCart, Robert Sietsema
"Tom’s Restaurant is famous for appearing in Seinfeld—and if you’re old enough, the Suzanne Vega song from the ’80s—but there’s more to this classic Morningside Heights diner than its cameos. Since the 1940s, it’s been a quiet corner retreat for Columbia students and neighborhood folks, with high-backed red vinyl booths and $7 mimosas (or house wine). The affordable diner food is solid, and there are usually some exciting-sounding weekly specials. It’s a perfect place to sit at the counter with a book, get distracted by SVU on the TV above you, and drink endless coffee refills poured by a waitress with a tiny butterfly tattoo on her neck. Food Rundown Chicken Noodle Soup If we lived nearby, we’d order this every time we fell sick. It has thin noodles and thick broth, and comes with Zesta crackers. Grilled Cheese With Tuna A respectable, homestyle tuna melt-ish sandwich for under $10. The fish is still cool, while the bread is lightly toasted, and it’s served with a pickle. photo credit: Sonal Shah Roast Leg Of Lamb Sandwich The leg of lamb is a Sunday special, and you can get it in sandwich form too. It tastes like Christmas leftovers and arrives with a big pile of fries, which are basic but better than the onion rings." - Sonal Shah
"Seinfeld fans who want to re-create their favorite scenes in Monk’s coffee shop need only travel to Manhattan’s Upper West Side. It won’t look familiar on the inside, but the blue and red neon wrapping the corner will let them know they’re in the right place. Tom’s Restaurant, or the façade anyway, located on Broadway at 112th Street near Columbia University, stood in for the fictional “Monk’s” on the show. Although the walls are now covered with Seinfeld memorabilia, when the images of the exterior were first taken for the show (including the “Tom’s” part of the name, which was later cropped out), the owner’s sons asked what they were for. The response: “It’s just for some pilot.” Since the 1940s, like many diners in New York, Tom’s has been in the hands of the same Greek-American family. It’s a diner-style eatery, with classic menu items like burgers, fries, BLTs, and milkshakes. It’s a frequent stop for Columbia students and their parents, even hosting Senator John McCain and his daughter Meghan when she was attending the university. Seinfeld was not the diner’s first brush with show business. In 1978, it was seen in an episode of The Bionic Woman, and in 1982 Suzanne Vega wrote about it in the song Tom’s Diner. It has also been featured as part of “Kramer’s Reality Tour,” run by Kenny Kramer, the inspiration for Jerry’s neighbor. And for one last Seinfeld hurrah, in 2014 it was used to film a Super Bowl commercial, featuring Jerry, George, and Jerry’s nemesis… Hello, Newman!" - ATLAS_OBSCURA
