New UES Restaurant By Flex Mussels Owner Will Revive Bygone Name

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — Nearly 50 years after a cozy restaurant called Hoexter's Market first beckoned Upper East Siders into its Third Avenue storefront, its brand will be revived on the same block — thanks to the daughter of its original owner.

Alexandra Shapiro, known to modern-day Upper East Siders as the owner of Flex Mussels, plans to open the new Hoexter's inside Flex's former home at 174 East 82nd St., just west of Third Avenue.

A seafood fixture on the Upper East Side, Flex relocated last summer to a new location a block south, months after a February fire badly damaged the East 82nd Street space. That left the old location vacant.

Inspiration for the new venture struck when Shapiro stumbled across an Etsy listing for a matchbook from the original Hoexter's, which her father, Bobby, opened in 1977 at 1442 Third Ave. (Now home to Shun Lee Cafe.)

"I've kind of made it my life's mission to find old relics from his projects in the past," Alexandra Shapiro told a Community Board 8 committee on Tuesday.

The original Hoexter's won a positive review in 1978 from New York Times restaurant critic Mimi Sheraton, who singled out its "irresistible" bread, "enticing" chicken breast, "bracing and interesting" onion soup, and "exceptionally fresh" steak tartare. (Meats at the restaurant were sourced from Robert Shapiro's other venture, Hoexter's Meat Market, based a block away on Lexington Avenue.)

Sheraton also praised its interior, which featured "natural-brick walls, soft taupes, cut mirrors set into an old bar and romantically theatrical stage lighting" — though the critic lamented the cramped table layout in the "jam-packed" restaurant.

As for the new Hoexter's, Shapiro envisions a "real old New York neighborhood place.

"The kind of place you can sit at the bar and have a great martini and a shrimp cocktail and a burger, but also have a really delicious steak in the back," she told the board.

Its design will be "classy but approachable," focused on being "a great place for the neighborhood," she said.

Hoexter's will initially be open daily from 4 p.m. to 12 a.m., eventually expanding to brunch service. It could open by early summer 2023, Shapiro told Patch by email.

Related coverage: Flex Mussels Opens New Upper East Side Restaurant: See Inside, Food