I was having breakfast at Three Guys on Madison when the waiter came to the table and said “Christos Anesti.” It translates to “Christ is Risen” and it’s what we say when we see each other on Easter and for 40 days after. Then the waitress walked by and said it. The manager made a point of greeting us with it too. “Wow,” said the friend I was eating with, also a Greek American girl from Brooklyn, “I love it here.”
Three Guys, Nectar, and Viand are really the only Greek diners left on Madison, but when I first moved to the neighborhood there were the Gardenia, Amity, and several branches of Viand and Nectar that have all since closed. Those three survivors remain largely unchanged—save for the prices which we can complain about (and I once sat next to a Hollywood super agent who did, and loudly) but we still go and nurse black coffees and English muffins with butter and Belgian waffles and Corfu salads and Greek wraps because where else is like here?
You can walk into a diner without a reservation, almost impossible to do anywhere else in New York anymore. There will be families there for breakfast, and friends grabbing lunch, the same woman eating a plate of cantaloupe every time you go, another with a stack of newspapers, the real estate guys in the booth, maybe an editor in the corner doing an interview. They will bring you a menu even if you really don’t ever need one. Does someone have to point you to a BLT on wheat toast? I always want to order rye bread just to listen for the phrase “whiskey down.”
Three Guys restaurant on Madison Avenue.
I go to Three Guys in the mornings. Spinach and feta egg white omelette. No potatoes, no toast. To Nectar on weekends and before or after the Met. Mykonos salad. Avgolemeno soup when they have it. To Viand when I have cash. Fresh turkey and American cheese.
“What’s with Greeks and diners?” It’s simple really and it’s how Mr George at Nectar explained it to me when Nectar Cafe on the corner of 79th closed during COVID. He came to America and worked as a dishwasher. There was another dishwasher who worked next to him. Eventually they bought the business. You can find the two of them there behind the counter of the remaining Nectar on 82nd and Madison almost every day.
Editor-in-Chief Stellene Volandes is a jewelry expert, and the author of Jeweler: Masters and Mavericks of Modern Design (Rizzoli).
