Last Call at Café Un Deux Trois.

Things have been looking a little bleak on my beloved 44th Street in Times Square this year, home to no less than seven Broadway theatres in a two-block stretch. And I’m not just talking about The Queen of Versailles. This past winter, we have seen lots of changes on this street in the heart of little old New York that runs into Times Square.

ABC News pulled out of its massive corner studios. No more Good Morning America. The news ticker and jumbotron where I stood and watched 9/11 unfold have gone dark.

Then, in 2024, the 70-year-old Irish dive, Smith’s, quietly gave up the ghost. Its timeless neon wraparound sign, gone. It was a grand old man bar, complete with a steam table stocked with funky corned beef and cabbage that remained largely untouched and gave the place an uncommon smell. There was one old guy with a long white beard who would sit at the end, his pack of Marlboro Reds next to a bottle of Bud, sound asleep. They called him the leprechaun. In recent years, they cleaned it up, made it a little more friendly to the lunch, family, and theatregoing crowd, but I couldn’t stay away; only now I could bring my kid and point to where the leprechaun used to sit.

Then we learned that Jimmy’s Corner is fighting for its life after more than fifty years. A beloved dive on the east side of 44th in a building that looks like it is about to fall over into the empty lot next door. The story is always the same: the landlord, the Durst Organization, is trying to terminate the lease since Jimmy died of Covid in 2020. Man, fuck those guys.

Mention Jimmy’s Corner to anyone who knows, and they will smile and say “Jimmy’s…” as if remembering that one friend who almost got himself arrested on spring break that time. “Jimmy always hooked us up,” said one former MTV employee. “He always made room for us when we would roll in with a large party and send over shots. So many shots. It should be landmarked.” “The night I got fired from Carmine’s I went to Jimmy’s and he hired me on the spot,” a friend told me. Everyone knew Jimmy, and even if you didn’t know him you paid your respects with a nod and a “Hey Jimmy.” You could usually find him on a stool next to the jukebox watching over things, his petite wife flitting around nearby. My very first visit there I ordered a margarita (that tells you how young I was). It cost four dollars and had a cherry in it. The vibe has gone from divey to dodgy to dangerous-looking, or maybe I’m losing my edge, who knows.

Courtesy: Getty

And then, this Christmas, it was announced that Café Un Deux Trois, where I personally have worked part-time behind the bar for the past few years, was closing its doors forever after forty-eight years, and I stood back and watched the whole thing.

Café Un Deux Trois has been nothing short of beloved in the theatre community. The storied mainstay was a hangout for a Who’s Who of Broadway as well as stagehands, producers, directors, and plenty of tourists. I had been there as a guest more times than I could count over the years, so I was surprised when I started working there to see how it was flying by the seat of its pants and gravely in need of a coat of paint and some new blood; the old blood being the owners – Gerard and George, the two men now in their eighties who had the crazy idea to open a French bistro in the middle of the garbage-strewn Times Square of the seventies.

Let’s start with them, as the buck stops with them. Gerard looks like Salvador Dalí if he were made of ice cream and had begun to melt. A rageaholic with several lawsuits in his past and whose directionless fury would be funny if he couldn’t fire everyone in the room should he wish to. He reminded me a lot of Trump in that way. And if Gerard was Trump, then his partner George was surely our Biden. The brains of the business; a gentle giant, tall and shambling, a guy who perhaps should have passed the reins on years ago and whose reluctance to do so came at a heavy price.

But we are not here to pig-pile on the gentlemen who ran one of the most famous Broadway hangouts ever. No one wants to hear it anyway. As these things happen, right before Christmas, some of us were told in strictest confidence by others who were told in the very strictest of confidence that we would be closing on January fourth. Later that same night Gerard (see above), after a few grappas, told absolutely everyone who worked there and started crying and hugging the busboys.

Scott Brooks/Tawk of New Yawk

So the word was out and the countdown had begun. I had expected more of a “last week of senior year” energy amongst the staff. We all knew it was all but over for the old 1, 2, 3 – most of us thought March/April at the latest. Some of these guys had been there so long, I don’t know how they are going to function at other restaurants where they will likely be held to different standards. Some of them seem too old to start over again – the rest of us had already planned for this and had our chutes packed.

Then one dinner companion of Gerard’s, who we called Freddy Freeloader because he only came in when Gerard was in town and he needed a free meal and who considers himself something of a journalist, decided to leak a release to the NY Post, and then the floodgates opened. My friend and NY Post theatre critic Johnny Oleksinski showed up wanting to write an article about the place closing and ended up seated at Gerard’s notorious table while he was regaled with tales of old, pausing only to blow up at a waiter about something, shouting so loudly that the entire dining room went silent, and I thought, please put this in the article, but he took the high road and I respect it. You can read it here.

Once word had really gotten out and people were being tagged on social media with other articles, like this very nice interview with George and his kids, virtually everyone who had ever been there had to come in one last time to look around. It became “Christmas busy” all over again during what is usually a quiet week between Christmas and January, except people were quitting and those who remained were pretty drunk for most of their shifts, but hey, glass houses. The other problem was as we were planning on closing, we had stopped ordering, ya know, goods. One night right before New Year’s, half the menu was 86’d (steak, burgers, mussels, even fries for fuck’s sake), and we were out of most all wine and booze. I was there when they had to advise George, “Hey, we need to order some shit or just close tonight.”

Scott Brooks/Tawk of New Yawk

And so it went. The place was packed all day and all night with people forcing the staff to have some version of the same conversation over and over. “Oh my God I can’t believe it. I love this place. Where am I going to go? Are you going to be okay? Isn’t there something anyone can do? We should all pitch in and buy it!”

My real regulars stepped up, some of them changing their weekend plans to come in and hang out all weekend. I went in on the very last night even though it was my night off, just to say goodbye. The room was full of people I had gotten to know for years, who I called friends. Some were crying. I am in many selfies. Café Un Deux Trois is the reason I’m a playwright again; I made so many industry connections I took it as a sign and I was right, it’s who I’ve always been. It’s how I’ve seen countless shows and how I started the Broadway Outsider column. And any snark that is detectable in my tone here is because it didn’t necessarily have to end this way, this soon. But that’s life, that’s New York, and any place is ultimately the people, not the walls or the booze or the cheese plates, and many of those fine people will be part of my life moving forward.

It was time for me to move on anyway, but I wish I was moving on knowing that the Kronenbourg was still flowing in one of the most special places in all of New York.

Scott Brooks/Tawk of New Yawk