The nostalgic, turreted White Castle near Queens Center mall in Elmhurst is set to shutter next week.
Restaurant manager Elsa Lima told the Chronicle Tuesday that the property at 89-03 57 Ave. has been sold, and the location’s last day of service will be June 24.
Lima said she believes an apartment building will replace it, but she did not know who the new owner is.
“It’s sad,” she said, saying customers are “not happy” White Castle is leaving and have been calling the restaurant about the closure.
Plenty of people feel that way. James McMenamin of Elmhurst posted about the closure in a neighborhood Facebook group Tuesday, and he later told the Chronicle that when he visited the restaurant that day, patrons seemed to be commiserating.
“The iconic location I believe opened about the time of the 39-40 World’s Fair, a familiar recognizable spot on the landscape that evoked nostalgia, in a radically and quickly being altered Queens Blvd.,” McMenamin said.
According to area historian Michael Perlman, the location first opened in 1939 and was rebuilt in 1963 and again in the 2000s. It was renovated about a year ago, and he said it is “senseless to undo that among its longtime cultural history.”
Multiple commenters on McMenamin’s post said the closure marked “the end of an era.” Many of them reflected on their fond memories of the restaurant.
“I’m sad to see this location close,” Jimmy Sarmiento wrote. “I grew up in Elmhurst for the majority of my life, worked at the Queens Center as a kid and partied like a rock star in my clubbing days and WC was the go to at 4/5 am to grab those lovely murder burgers!”
“I remember when I was a kid they would bring your order out to the car with a tray that hung from your window,” Shawyn Maley commented. “So many belly bomb runs there.”
Some users recalled going on dates there as teenagers. Others referred to the restaurant as a Queens landmark.
Perlman believes the building’s history and architecture merits preserving.
“It does not need to be an elegant officially designated landmark to see the need to preserve it, even if it’s on a humble scale,” he said, suggesting that the developer build alongside the structure and cantilever over it instead of demolishing it.
Beau Brent, the lead singer of glam metal band FerreTT who was inducted into White Castle’s Cravers Hall of Fame last year, also is sad to see the joint go. The Elmhurst location was his home base for more than a decade when he lived in Kew Gardens — he even mentions it in a song he wrote lauding the restaurant’s “food for the gods.”
“I love that White Castle, and it’s definitely surprising because it’s always been crowded, every time I’ve been there,” Brent said.
He and his band plan to visit the restaurant one last time after their practice on Saturday.
The most recent documents attached to the White Castle’s address on the Automated City Register Information System were dated in 2020 and filed in 2023, permitting restaurant and drive-thru operations.
The address did not yield any results on the Department of City Planning’s Zoning Application Portal.
White Castle’s press team responded to the Chronicle’s request for comment and additional information, but did not provide them by press time Wednesday.
McMenamin said that “every month it seems some vestige from the past is closing or being replaced” — Elmhurst’s St. Bartholomew Catholic Academy is set to close, and he went to its final graduation last week.
“It’s hard to keep up with massive change on such a scale, especially when what becomes new presents a blandness and hardly welcoming feeling,” he said.