{"id":46432,"date":"2025-07-07T16:46:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-07T16:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/46432\/"},"modified":"2025-07-07T16:46:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T16:46:10","slug":"nyc-restaurant-hectors-cafe-and-diner-is-closing-in-the-meatpacking-district","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/46432\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC Restaurant Hector\u2019s Cafe and Diner Is Closing in the Meatpacking District"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph n2hx75i _1knl15h1 _1knl15h0 cej01i1\">Longtime restaurant, Hector\u2019s Cafe and Diner, which had been in the Meatpacking District for 76 years, will shutter on Friday, July 18, at Little West 12th Street. Owner Nick Kapelonis tells Eater that \u201cthe meatpackers decided to leave, and we agreed with them it was time to leave as well,\u201d referring to the hold-out butchers, of which the neighborhood takes its name. In 2024, the New York Post <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2024\/10\/28\/business\/meatpacking-district-to-lose-last-beef-businesses-as-trendy-nabe-eyes-new-housing-deal\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reported<\/a> that the block would be taken over by the Whitney Museum, as part of a building expansion, as well as the group behind the High Line, the elevated park built above Hector\u2019s, and a rental complex. <\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph n2hx75i _1knl15h1 _1knl15h0 cej01i1\">Despite Hector\u2019s lease lasting until 2033, the team has decided to shut down now. \u201cCOVID changed so much of our business,\u201d he says, adding that he and his family, who took over the diner 45 years ago, will take some time to reset \u2014 but aren\u2019t ruling out opening another restaurant somewhere else. <\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph n2hx75i _1knl15h1 _1knl15h0 cej01i1\">Kapelonis said the butchers were some of the diner\u2019s most reliable, longtime customers, who had become \u201clike family\u201d over the years. Throughout its life, the diner also appeared in many films and television shows, including Law &amp; Order, and counted crew members as ongoing regulars. Perhaps most notably, Hector\u2019s was also featured in Taxi Driver.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph n2hx75i _1knl15h1 _1knl15h0 cej01i1\">The Meatpacking District has changed so much since Hector\u2019s first debuted in 1949: A cobblestone neighborhood once filled with industrial businesses and, later, nightclubs, has transformed into a luxury hub for designer shopping and high-end restaurants. All through that, Hector\u2019s has remained an affordable constant \u2014 until now. <\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph n2hx75i _1knl15h1 _1knl15h0 cej01i1\">Eater has reached out to the Whitney Museum for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Longtime restaurant, Hector\u2019s Cafe and Diner, which had been in the Meatpacking District for 76 years, will shutter&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":46433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,29279,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-46432","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-newyork","12":"tag-newyorkcity","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-nyc-restaurant-closings","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114812969781450545","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}