Cornelia Street Cafe

Cornelia Street Café
Cornelia Street Cafe, circa 2009
Restaurant information
EstablishedJuly 1977 (1977-07)
ClosedJanuary 1, 2019 (2019-01-01)
Owner(s)Robin Hirsch
Previous owner(s)Charles McKenna, Raphaela Pivetta, Robin Hirsch
Dress codeCasual
Street address29 Cornelia St.
CityManhattan
CountyNew York City
StateNew York State
CountryUnited States of America
Coordinates40°43′53″N 74°00′09″W / 40.731348°N 74.002391°W / 40.731348; -74.002391
Websitecorneliastreetcafe.com

The Cornelia Street Cafe was a restaurant and bar at 29 Cornelia Street in New York City's Greenwich Village, opened in July 1977. The Cornelia Street Café had a 41-year inning in the West Village. It was named "a cultural as well as a culinary landmark" by the City of New York. It produced some 700 shows a year in every conceivable genre (and quite a few inconceivable ones) from science to stilt-walking, from Afro-American poetry to Latin jazz, from Shakespeare at Midnight to the entire Iliad as an experiment in Breakfast Theatre; from members of Monty Python reading children's stories to local kids to members of the Royal Shakespeare Company reciting the poetry of long dead poets on their birthdays; from Carolyne Mas and The Songwriters Exchange to Eve Ensler and The Vagina Monologues. The cafe closed at the end of 2018 because of rising rents from the gentrification of the West Village, ending on its holiday closed day of New Year's Day 2019. The cafe had been voted one of the best places to listen to jazz music in the world.