Chock Full O' Nuts Returns To Manhattan. But Is That Salmon On The Menu?

Back in the 1950s and '60s, New York City was studded with Chock Full o'Nuts coffee shops, homegrown institutions where the budget-minded could sidle up to the lunch counter for a freshly prepared meal. But the restaurants - once nearly as ubiquitous as the Checker cabs that inspired their yellow-and-black decor - were all but gone by the early '80s, leaving faded memories and eventually some smaller cafes and kiosks bearing the company name.

Evangelos Gianakos tried a pastrami sandwich during a preview on Friday of the Chock Full o'Nuts restaurant on 23rd Street. The formal opening is scheduled for 11 a.m. on Monday.

"We're going to bring back Chock to New York in a way that people remember it," said Jim LaGanke, a vice president of the company.

But starting at 11 a.m. Monday, New Yorkers will once more be able to enjoy those long-lost whole-wheat doughnuts, nut-and-cream-cheese sandwiches, grilled hot dogs and split pea soups, along with their coffee, when the chain opens its first old-style restaurant in decades.

"It finally dawned on us that we were missing the heritage, and that we really needed to get back to the roots of what Chock was really well-known for," said Jim LaGanke, a vice president of the company, which has continued to sell its self-proclaimed "heavenly coffee" in stores. "We're going to bring back Chock to New York in a way that people remember it." Quite literally: the restaurant, on 23rd Street between Fifth Avenue and Avenue of the Americas, is even offering two versions of its nutty sandwich - the original, on whole-wheat raisin bread with walnuts and Neufchatel cheese, and one with cream cheese on date-nut bread, which many people remember fondly despite its late introduction to the menu, Mr. LaGanke said.

For the developers who will operate the restaurant in the shadow of Mario Batali's high-end Eataly complex - Joe Bruno and Patrick Johnson - this is just the beginning. They are already constructing a second Chock in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, where the two grew up, and have the rights to develop 50 restaurants across the city (except for Staten Island) over the next 15 years.

Chock Full o'Nuts began as a nut shop in 1926 and became a coffee shop chain during the Depression. "We're in a recession now," Mr. Bruno said, "and comfort food is always something that people gravitate to. On top of that, let's face it: leases are now to be easily had in Manhattan." Judging from the enthusiasm with which passers-by greeted the menu in the window on Friday afternoon, Mr. Bruno's assessment may prove correct.

"I hadn't seen one of these in decades, and I got terribly excited. I called my husband, who was born, raised and educated in Manhattan," said Susan Scapier, who lives in the borough and declined to give her age, saying, "That's classified - way over 40." She said she had become a fan of the chain's hot dogs after she moved to New York around 1980.

Madeline Tarantino and Rose Sorrentino, longtime friends from Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, said they hoped it would be like the place they remembered for its doughnuts.

"Just goes to show, some things do come back," Ms. Tarantino said to Ms. Sorrentino as they strolled 23rd Street.

But some things come back different. The menu, which includes items like Buffalo wings, grilled salmon and a Cobb salad, features whipped cream cheese on the Chock Classic date-nut sandwich. Linda Mayer, 62, who was telling her husband, Ron, about her memories of the chain, said she remembered occasionally splitting that sandwich with a friend from school when they could scrape together the money for it.

"There was no such thing as whipped cream cheese in those days - that does not make it a classic," she said with a smile, adding that she would visit the restaurant if she could get her old friend to come with her.

But, she added, "You never can go home again, so I probably will not like the Chock Classic."

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