About Tom's Restaurant

In 1989, cameramen and a producer showed up at Tom's Restaurant to take shots of the exterior for use in an upcoming television show pilot. Though the restaurant wasn't even wearing makeup for those pictures, it still rocketed to stardom—the television show, as it turns out, was Seinfeld.

Tom's Restaurant played the role of the iconic Monk's Café, where Jerry and the gang hung out episode after episode. Today, visitors from across the globe travel to the corner of 112th Street and Broadway to take their own pictures with this slice of television history.

But long before the generic neon "Restaurant" sign became instantly recognizable, Tom's was the go-to hangout for actual people, including students from Columbia, men who worked in the trades, and other folks from around the neighborhood (one of whom was singer/songwriter Suzanne Vega, who penned a song there that eventually morphed into "Tom's Diner"). These same customers have flocked to Tom's since the 1940s, and today, they continue to file in for the omelets, pancakes, and bagels in the morning, and the cheeseburgers, fresh soups, and milkshakes later in the day.

They're also not shocked when the interior of Tom's looks nothing like it did on TV. That part, like most of Babe Ruth's career, was filmed on a set in California.