Historic "Palace Cafe" Reopened By Greenpoint Locals

GREENPOINT, BROOKLYN -- The bar at 206 Nassau Ave. may have a new name on its doors -- if only slightly -- but inside, the history of pubs that called the space home in the 80 years before still lives on.

The corner establishment, once the beloved Palace Cafe and a string of other bars as far back as the 1920s, opened its doors for the first time last weekend since it closed when the owners retired a few years ago.

Now called "The Palace," the bar promises to revive the history of the favorite local watering hole, said Nick Padilla, who owns it with Mary Schultz and Rita Puskas.

"We're all Greenpoint locals and we've loved this place for a long time," he said, adding that they kept the space as close to its original form as possible. "What a lot of people say when they walk in is, 'It looks like you barely changed anything.' It's the same bar, the same floor and the same Tudor style."

Padilla said the only difference people might notice are structural changes to bring the building up to code and an updated kitchen to accommodate The Palace's classic bar menu.

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But the rest of the space, including old photos featured on the walls, pay homage to the bar's past, which the owners learned even more about as they built the new establishment, Padilla said.

"People came in while we were building it out to say, 'Oh, you know, I remember I had my christening in here,' or, 'I had my 13th birthday party here 40 years ago,'" he said. "A lot of (the history) isn't written in a book somewhere...it's passed down through regulars that have been coming in since they were little kids."

Some of those regulars have been family of the former Palace Cafe owners, who are friends with Schultz and still stop by from time to time, Padilla said.

The Palace Cafe called the space home from its opening in 1956 until the owners retired two years ago. Before that, the bar was called Flanagan's, Smitty's and Gavin's, according to DNAinfo.

Padilla said the neighborhood "came out in a big way" for The Palace's opening weekend and he and his co-owners are looking forward to more weekends to come in the space.

"(The bar) is our love letter to Greenpoint, and we hope to share many years of drinks and laughs and music with all of you," the three wrote on their Instagram.

Recent photos taken by Lou Caldarola, contributed by The Palace's Instagram.