![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/IMG_1635.jpg\")
The Brooklyn Diner\u2019s neon-lit exterior stands out along West 57th Street in Manhattan.Photo by Claude Solnik<\/p>\nShelly Fireman, a restaurateur who decades ago believed in retro, called Alexis Reyes in the early 1990s and offered him a job. The problem was that Reyes already had a good gig as the manager of Sarabeth\u2019s, a successful restaurant on the Upper West Side.<\/p>\n
Fireman, though, had an idea.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said we are going to be the finer diner, not a finer diner,\u201d Reyes said. \u201cHe said that to me from the beginning.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Then Fireman told him he wanted to call it the \u201cBrooklyn Diner.\u201d It would evoke all sorts of memories of Brooklyn, from Ebbets Field to Coney Island.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI said to him, you\u2019re from the Bronx. I was born in the Bronx. He said, \u2018But you live in Brooklyn now.\u2019 I used to spend summers with my godfather in Brooklyn. I loved Brooklyn,\u201d Reyes said. \u201cHe was fascinated with Brooklyn. He had a love story with Brooklyn.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stephanie Holmes, director of guest experience for the Fireman Hospitality Group, said Fireman grew up in the Bronx and had many stories about it, but believed Brooklyn had a universal appeal.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said in an interview that Brooklyn is for everybody,\u201d Holmes said. \u201cThe Brooklyn Diner seemed like a welcoming, open, accepting restaurant. You walk in and you\u2019re immediately in Brooklyn.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Brooklyn Diner\u2019s neon-lit exterior stands out along West 57th Street in Manhattan.Photo by Claude Solnik<\/p>\n
Fireman loved the Dodgers and believed Brooklyn could serve as the basis for a brand.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe loved Brooklyn and he knew I loved Brooklyn,\u201d Reyes said. \u201cHe said this is the Brooklyn Diner. Everybody wants to be from Brooklyn. I said Brooklyn is the 51st state.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
A memorial with a menu<\/p>\n
Fireman died recently, leaving behind family, friends, his company and a legacy of restaurants, including the original Brooklyn Diner, neon and all, at 212 W. 57th St.<\/p>\n
Ben Grossman, who was named chief strategy officer a few years ago, is CEO of the Fireman Hospitality Group, which includes a small empire of eateries.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is definitely here with us every day in spirit. He came into the office almost every day until the very end,\u201d Holmes said of Fireman. \u201cHe passed away in his early 90s in November. He was dedicated to his company. His office was above the Brooklyn Diner. He could look down at the guests standing outside waiting for their tables to be called.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fireman first opened The Hip Bagel in Greenwich Village in 1963, when bagels were still a novelty. The closet-sized eatery appeared in Woody Allen\u2019s \u201cPlay It Again, Sam.\u201d
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/diner-7-3-21-giada-paoloni-0539.jpg\")
A New York-style hot dog is served at the Brooklyn Diner, known for its classic comfort food.Photo courtesy of the Fireman Hospitality Group\n<\/p>\n
He saved up and, in 1974, opened Caf\u00e9 Fiorello across from Lincoln Center, assembling a collection of eateries that leaned heavily on the Brooklyn brand. Fireman\u2019s food empire included two Brooklyn Diners, two Brooklyn Delis, Trattoria Del Arte, the Red Eye Grill, Bond 45 in Times Square, and Caf\u00e9 Paradiso across from Caf\u00e9 Fiorello.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s in addition to Caf\u00e9 Fiorello in Washington, D.C., and Fiorella Italian Kitchen and Pizzeria in National Harbor, Maryland, as well as the Paris Bar inside the Le M\u00e9ridien hotel.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cHe named Cafe Fiorello after Fiorello LaGuardia,\u201d Holmes said. \u201cHe\u2019s half Jewish and half Italian. That\u2019s part of our brand.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
The Brooklyn Diner is near Central Park and Carnegie Hall, and all of the group\u2019s restaurants are near signature venues, such as Fiorello\u2019s across from Lincoln Center.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re definitely nostalgic,\u201d Holmes said. \u201cWe lean into retro and comfort and we make you feel homey like you\u2019re at home.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
From the beginning<\/p>\n
Reyes first worked for Fireman at Fiorello\u2019s, near Lincoln Center, starting as a dishwasher, then a busser, and eventually rising to manager. He left to pursue a career as a performer, singing in jazz clubs and touring with musicals.<\/p>\n
Fireman visited him at Sarabeth\u2019s in 1994 and asked him to \u201ccome home\u201d and work for him again.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said, \u2018I have something for you where you can really use your talents and become a star,\u201d Reyes said. \u201cHe spoke like he was an MGM producer, an impresario. That was his character.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Fireman sent him to Fiorello\u2019s to train before they opened the Brooklyn Diner, where he became the first manager.\n<\/p>\n
They were across from the music-themed Hard Rock Caf\u00e9 and the movie-themed Planet Hollywood. \u201cHe said, \u2018The theme of my restaurant is food, the most diverse food in the city,\u201d Reyes said, although it clearly also was Brooklyn.<\/p>\n
They gave away free food for five days, winning over customers for life.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWhoever showed up the first five days kept coming,\u201d Reyes said. \u201cI had the same guests for years, until they passed away or moved.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\u201cPaul McCartney used to come in, sit with me at the last table and take pictures,\u201d Holmes said. \u201cHe would get up and play the harmonica if a baby was crying. People would say, \u2018Was that Paul McCartney playing the harmonica?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Celebrities still come in, including Jerry Seinfeld and Colin Quinn, although Seinfeld never filmed his podcast there. \u201cHe had that show where he was going to restaurants,\u201d Reyes said. \u201cHe didn\u2019t come to ours with that, because we\u2019re his private little gem.\u201d<\/p>\n
The diner gets many things right with its love of Brooklyn, baseball, the boardwalk and the beach, but its Ebbets Field mural has an error.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI to this day think he intentionally did it incorrectly,\u201d Reyes said. \u201cThe right side is not correct. People have debates.\u201d
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Brooklyn_Diner_075.jpg\")
An Ebbets Field mural inside the Brooklyn Diner includes a long-debated inaccuracy, noted by longtime manager Alexis Reyes.Photo courtesy of the Fireman Hospitality Group\n<\/p>\n
Reyes, 72, comes in three days a week as \u201cmanager emeritus,\u201d traveling back and forth from Brooklyn to the Brooklyn Diner.<\/p>\n
They still serve pastrami hash, chicken pot pie, matzoh ball soup, foot-long hot dogs, egg creams, root beer floats and milkshakes.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThat chicken soup and matzoh ball soup has not been touched,\u201d Reyes told Brooklyn Paper. \u201cPeople come in and say the kugel\u2019s like my grandmother\u2019s. I say, \u2018Your grandmother couldn\u2019t afford to make this kugel with these ingredients.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Holmes said Fireman dreamed of Brooklyn diners across the nation and the world.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cHe thought Brooklyn was everybody,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n
A Brooklyn Diner recently opened at LaGuardia Airport, although Holmes said the Fireman Group does not operate that location.\n<\/p>\n
Fireman continued working nearly until his death, enjoying the piece of Brooklyn he built in the middle of Manhattan.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw him the week before he died. The patio was open. I sat with him. He was asking me about people coming in and what they liked,\u201d Reyes said. \u201cPeople talk about how eccentric he was. That\u2019s probably true, but there was genius to him. Look at what he created. At our worst moment, we sparkled.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/IMG_1598.jpg\")
A bas-relief sculpture created by Shelly Fireman honors his parents inside the Brooklyn Diner.Photo by Claude Solnik<\/p>\n
Holmes, who works above the Brooklyn Diner, sees people\u2019s faces light up when they see its neon fa\u00e7ade.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery day I see people taking selfies outside the Brooklyn Diner,\u201d she said. \u201cEverybody wants to get their photo taken inside of it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
People sometimes recognize Reyes as a minor celebrity.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople stop me on the street and say, \u2018Aren\u2019t you that guy from the diner?\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cThey say, \u2018Can we take a picture with you.\u2019\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Sometimes they take pictures with him at the diner. Other times, he heads home on the F train to the real Brooklyn, while visitors continue snapping photos at the Brooklyn Diner, where Shelly Fireman\u2019s dream lives on \u2014 as new, neon and fresh as it was decades ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shelly Fireman, a restaurateur who decades ago believed in retro, called Alexis Reyes in the early 1990s and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,82645,100,99,288,8894,9,24,12,370,63,82646,82647,82648,62],"class_list":{"0":"post-208351","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn","8":"tag-brooklyn","9":"tag-brooklyn-diner","10":"tag-brooklyn-headlines","11":"tag-brooklyn-news","12":"tag-business","13":"tag-food-and-drink","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-city","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-newsletter","18":"tag-nyc","19":"tag-sarabeths","20":"tag-shelly-fireman","21":"tag-the-brooklyn-diner","22":"tag-upper-west-side"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}