"Andrew's Coffee Shop on Pearl and John in the Financial District closed after 31 years... I think they have other locations in NYC... but it was really homey and very 1979 -- don't know if they changed the decor since they opened. But that and the Pearl Diner are/were havens in the soulless corridor there.... A shame."
Are there any Andrews left--or was this the last?
And if you're wondering "Who's Andrew?" as I did, the Times answered in 1993: "Q. Who is Andrew and why does he have so many coffee shops? A. The coffee shops are named after Andrew Zamel, a Palestinian immigrant who came to New York in 1960 and began opening the shops in 1963. At one point there were 15 such coffee shops in Manhattan; now there are eight."
That number is much smaller now. Andrews Coffee Shops have been shuttering one by one for the past few years. Their location on W. 34th closed a year ago. Another on Broadway and 38th shuttered circa 2007 to become, said a Yelper, a Pret a Manger. And in 2005 the one I often frequented on 5th Ave and 19th closed, becoming a White House Black Market wedding boutique, though Apple purportedly holds the lease. (The Times has more on that story.)
5th and 19th, from everystreetinmanhattan
Of course, we've been watching the New York coffee shop vanish for awhile now. As The Observer noted in 2007, "the old-fashioned coffee shop, one of New York’s most quintessential and beloved establishments, has become an endangered species, so imperiled that many neo-New Yorkers now consider the phrase 'coffee shop' synonymous with—the horror!—'Starbucks.'"
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