Lundy's Restaurant, also known as Lundy Brothers Restaurant, was an historic American seafood restaurant in the Sheepshead Bay neighborhood of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. A local institution, it operated from 1934 or 1935 (accounts vary) to 1977 or 1979 (accounts vary), and then again from 1997 to early 2007.
Video Lundy's Restaurant
History
At the turn of the 20th century, Irving Lundy started a business selling clams out of a pushcart. By 1907, he had opened a clam bar built on stilts over Sheepshead Bay, closing it when the city built a new bulkhead at that location. Lundy, with several family members, subsequently built the formal restaurant, located at 1901 Emmons Avenue, in 1934.
Lundy's closed in 1979, following Irving Lundy's death. It was acquired two decades later by the publicly traded Tam Restaurant Group, which in 1995 reopened it as a smaller venue in the same location. The new owners also opened a branch location in 2001, at 205 West 50th Street in Manhattan's Times Square district, but it lasted only a short time.
In December 2004, a family-owned business, The Players Club, headed by restaurateur Afrodite Dimitroulakos, announced it had acquired Lundy's from the Tam Restaurant Group. Lundy's again closed down in early 2007. The space now houses the Lundy's Landing Shopping Plaza.
Storm damage from Hurricane Sandy forced the waters of Sheepshead Bay to overflow, causing the Russian themed Cherry Hill Gourmet Market (located at the site of the former Lundy's Restaurant) street level water damage resulting in tons of spoiled food. During the post-hurricane cleanup the food had to be discarded, but the Lundy's Building otherwise survived. The front of Masal's Cafe looking out on Sheepshead Bay at Lundy's Landing Shopping Plaza (the current name of the Lundy's building, which now hosts several restaurants and businesses) shows the high height of the water level entering the Lundy's structure at the peak of Hurricane Sandy.
Maps Lundy's Restaurant
Description
Lundy's in its heyday was reported to be the largest restaurant in the United States, seating, per various reports, 2,400 to 2,800 patrons. Heyday dining at Lundy's was unlike at any other restaurant. Firstly, all or virtually all the very hardworking waiters were African-American. Its surrounding neighborhoods being almost exclusively European-American, this probably shocked new diners, especially younger ones, but it of course became a non-issue during the course of the meal. Even more unusual, the restaurant did not provide hosts for seating and reservations were not taken. Arriving diners would spread out throughout the expanse in pairs, searching for empty or about to be vacated tables, and, with success, dispatching one of the successful searchers to find and alert the others in their party. The 1997 version seated 700-800.
The restaurant was decorated with the letters "F.W.I.L.," standing for "Frederick William Irving Lundy". Irving Lundy's brothers Clayton and Stanley died in January 1920 in a boating accident while tending the family's clam beds in Jamaica Bay. Another brother, Allen, survived and helped Irving manage the restaurant.
Food critic Mimi Sheraton wrote that her favorite dishes included the "Huckleberry pie (not blueberry), biscuits and Manhattan clam chowder" No mention of the fare at Lundy's should properly omit mention of a couple of items: the bucket of steamed clams ("steamers") and its eating ritual: dip each clam first in salt water to get rid of any sand, then in the melted butter. Also, the multi-course Shore Dinner, frequently misread as the ShAre Dinner, because of its excess.
See also
- List of restaurants in New York City
- List of seafood restaurants
- List of New York City Designated Landmarks in Brooklyn
- National Register of Historic Places listings in Kings County, New York
Footnotes
References
External links
- Lundy's Restaurant (from archive.org; official site now removed)
- Forgotten NY Neighborhoods
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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