Famed N.Y. diner retiring to Wyoming New York Daily News
August 5, 2007
NEW YORK After 75 years of burger-flipping history and bit parts in movies like Spider-Man, SoHo's famed Moondance Diner is retiring — to Wyoming.
The steel-sided eatery with a revolving crescent moon sign will be uprooted from the corner of Sixth Avenue and Grand Street this week and trucked 2,100 miles to the tiny town of La Barge.
"We'd like to keep the diner as original as we can," said Cheryl Pierce, who with her husband, Vincent, bought the 36-by-16-foot diner for $7,500. "When folks from SoHo and Manhattan come to eat over here they can say, 'Yeah, this is it.'"
In New York, Moondance competed with 18,000 restaurants. In LaBarge it will be the only place to eat in the town of 493 people.
"People are really excited about having a place to eat for once," Pierce, 32, said Wednesday.
The greasy spoon has appeared in TV shows such as Friends and Sex and the City. It was where Kirsten Dunst's character, Mary Jane, worked as a waitress in Spider-Man.
The late playwright Jonathan Larson earned tips as a Moondance waiter while waiting for his play Rent to be produced on Broadway.
Local residents organized an effort to save it, and the Extell Development Corp., which bought the lot the diner sits on, agreed to help preserve it.
Extell let the American Diner Museum in Rhode Island take it off its hands. The Pierces spotted it on the museum's Web site and made an offer. "We are happy to do our part to preserve this piece of cinematic and city history," said Gary Barnett, president of Extell.
The diner, which has a 10-stool counter and seats a total of 34, is expected to be moved Wednesday. Moondance fans are crestfallen.
"They had the best banana pancakes," said Sheronia James, 39, of Irvington, N.J., who works across the street from the Moondance. "It was a great diner."