Big Nick Has Left The Building

A week ago for my birthday I spent the afternoon with a dear friend.  After we sat down for lunch she had to break some very sad news to me.  Our beloved  Big Nicks Pizza and Burger Joint was no more.  She was on the Upper West Side on a date and and going to show her guy Big Nicks.  When they got there, there was nothing but a hole.  The entire interior scooped out like an empty eye socket on the face of the block.  She stood,  jaw dropped and dumb struck in dismay.  Big Nicks was no more.  She told her date that she didn't know how she was going to break it to me. Her friend didn't exactly understand her reaction, but if you were a Big Nicks regular or even occasional  customer and love New York City you certainly do get it.
This seems to be an all too familiar story for New Yorkers these days.  We have watched the Mom & Pop localized character that defined the real New York, turn increasingly into an open air suburban mall.  We've watched our small hardware and bookstores succumb to exorbitant rents and now increasingly our local eateries chothiers. Manhattan especially has been taken over by a big box chain store/restaurant mania.  Exorbitant rents driving out all but those fortunate enough to own their own space.  The thriving food culture emerging in Brooklyn owes it to this fact.  It too will slowly be driven out as developers discover more and more parts of the Borough.  Big Nicks demise is emblematic is of this trend.
Over the years I have watched more than one of my "real" New York spots die.  Angels the homey Italian on the Upper East Side, Chumley's the West Village former speakeasy among others.  But Big Nicks was a part and parcel of my New York experience.  On my first visit to NYC in 1993, we stayed at a hotel in the neighborhood.  On our first day we discovered Nicks and were hooked.  We ate there at least one meal a day everyday that week.  We were part of the Big Nicks family and didn't even know it.  A full year later on another vacation we walked into Big Nicks for a meal  A waiter stopped in his tracks, held out his hands to the side, palms up and with his shoulders held in the top of a shrug (a Real New Yorker thing), and said in his Greek American accent, "where have you been?  We were worried about you guys."  I said, "you know we don't actually  live here."  Then and there I knew this place had more than just a unique ambiance, kitschy decor and great food.  This place had a soul.  Every time we would make the pilgrimage to the Big Apple we would rekindle our friendship with our home away from home restaurant.  It became our emotional base of operations on every visit, until we were able to make the move from North Carolina to Manhattan 6 years later.
After moving to Manhattan we made regular visits to Nicks.  At one point we attended church on the Upper West Side and had lunch at Nicks almost every Sunday.  Nicks also became a must see "real New York" spot for our friends and relatives visiting from out of town.  If Big Nick was around I would tell him about the visitors I, "had to bring to Big Nicks."  He would come by the table to introduce himself and welcome them.  At the end of the meal a platter of Baklava would land on the table but not on the bill.  My frequent flyer best friend from Nashville who comes to visit once or twice a year, loved to visit Big Nicks.  On days when he was in the city and I was at work, he would often swing by Nicks for a Burger or a Pastry.  My friend who told me about Nicks closing also adopted it as her place too.  If we were hanging out in the city or strolling through Central Park we often would finish our afternoon sitting at Big Nicks...outside on a warm day, inside on a chilly one.  The last time she and I were there, my favorite waiter stopped by our table and said to me, "hey my friend how are you doing? "...He looked at her and said, "You know 20 years I know this man...a good man".  One memorable moment a few years ago encapsulates what I mean.  I was going through a painful divorce from the woman with whom I first discovered Big Nicks.  I hadn't been to Nicks since the divorce had started.  I came in a few months later and he said, "where have you been my friend, whats wrong, where's your wife?".I told him that she left and that I was pretty much a mess.  He pulled me aside in the back of the resturant, looked me straight in the eye and said, " Don't worry my friend....You don't deserve this and are better than this...You are going to be better off...You are going to be fine."  He went on like this for a few minutes gave me a big hug and said, " now please sit, what can I get you, the tall mug?"
I don't have time for all the stories but when I say Big Nicks has been part and parcel of my NY experience
that is what I mean.
I suppose writing this is part of my grieving process.  I will miss the smell of the fresh bread and pizza coming out of the ovens virtually in arms reach as you walk in one of the two entrances.  I will miss taking people to the diner with the tiniest space (1000 sq.ft.) but the largest menu (original menu on paper the size of a phone book for a small town) you've ever seen.  I will miss sending new comers to the rest room through the door in the rear of the restaurant clearly marked "do not enter".  After you walk through the dish washing and prep station you would find the tiniest restroom in Manhattan.  The inevitable grin on their way back was always predictable.  I will miss the celebrity or near celebrity pictures plastered all over the walls.  I will miss the three stooges re-runs constantly playing on the TVs hanging near the ceiling.  I will miss sitting outside on mild days watching the hum of activity on Broadway.  I will miss knowing there was a bathroom down a back stairway clearly marked "employees only", but knowing it was okay for me to use.  I will miss the best white pizza and dazzling selection of succulent giant burgers. I will miss the extra tall frosted mug on a hot day.   I will miss the feeling of having a place that always felt like home.  Most of  all I will miss the people.  I will miss the customers, a diverse cast of characters seated nearly on top of you and becoming part of your party.  I will miss seeing Big Nick himself sitting at the bar nodding in recognition as I walked in.  I will miss my favorite waiter who teased my X wife that he was my boyfriend but after my divorce made me feel like I had a true friend.  I will miss the cooks and bus boys that though we rarely spoke we recognized and smiled at each other.  I will miss having a go to place that when all else failed that was reliable, affordable, accessible and felt like home. I will miss it all.  
Big Nick claims that he is going to find another space farther uptown.  For the sake of his staff, I hope that he can.  Of course I and some of my Nick friendly friends will visit to support them.  However we all know it won't really be the same.  There was something about that space that was almost like hallowed ground in my NY experience.  My ground zero. The place I could go when I wanted to feel that thing that I felt when I first visited New York.  It made me feel like a real New Yorker.
Big Nick has left the building.  Is it time for me to leave too?