Tom's Restaurant
in New York, United StatesCategory: Attraction
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2880 Broadway, New York, NY 10025, USA Print route »
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Tom's Restaurant is a diner located at 2880 Broadway (on the corner of West 112th Street) in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Frequented by students and faculty of nearby Columbia University, it has been owned and operated by the Greek-American family of Minas Zoulis since the 1940s.Tom's Restaurant was the locale that inspired Suzanne Vega's 1987 song "Tom's Diner." Later, its exterior was used as a stand-in for the fictional Monk's Café in the television sitcom Seinfeld, where comedian Jerry Seinfeld's eponymous character and his friends regularly gathered to eat. The interior shown on the television show, however, looked very little like the real "Tom's", as indoor scenes were filmed on a set in Los Angeles.Early Seinfeld episodes showed the entire neon sign; later, the "Tom's" portion was cropped out, showing only the "RESTAURANT" wraparound. Even though the interior and exterior have undergone minor remodeling since the show, the distinctive sign has remained the same. Tom's is featured in Kramer's Reality Tour conducted by Kenny Kramer.Senator John McCain often ate at Tom's when he visited his daughter Meghan when she was a student at Columbia. Likewise, Barack Obama frequented the restaurant as a student at Columbia. Tom's exterior has been seen on television before, in the 1978 The Bionic Woman episode "Long Live the King" at around the 27 minute mark of the DVD release.
