Fanelli Cafe is one of the oldest bars in New York City and a true SoHo landmark. It's a place that’s seen the neighborhood evolve from factories and artists’ lofts to designer boutiques and tourists.
The building at 94 Prince Street, on the corner of Mercer, dates back to 1847. It first operated as a grocery store owned by James Morrissey, but by 1860, it was already serving alcohol — making it one of the city’s earliest continuously licensed taverns.
A SoHo grocer - Photo: NYPL Digital Archives
Over the next century and a half, it would change names and owners several times, but it always remained a neighborhood watering hole.
Photo: WikiCommons
Photo: WikiCommons
In the 1850s and 60s Broadway from Canal to Houston, became the site of many fashionable hotels such as the famous St. Nicholas, Niblo's Garden and expensive stores and Mercer and Price Streets became lined with expensive brothels.
By the late 1800s it was called “Tom Lynch’s Café,” a popular spot for local workers from the printing and manufacturing industries in the area.
Photo: NYPL Digital Archives
Then came Prohibition in the 1920s and like many “cafés” of the time, it quietly kept pouring drinks behind closed doors.
Photo: NYPL Digital Archives
The Fanelli Family - Photo: NYPL Digital Archives
Finally In 1922, the bar took on the name that would stick: Fanelli Café, after new owner Michael Fanelli, an Italian immigrant and boxer. The Fanelli family ran the place for decades, serving a mix of laborers, cops, and longshoremen.
Gallery scene. - Photo: NYPL Digital Archives
Jean-Michel and Andy. - Photo: NYPL Digital Archives
When SoHo began transforming in the 1960s and ’70s as artists moved into the area’s cast-iron lofts, Fanelli’s became their hangout. It was smoky, cheap, and always open late. Robert Mapplethorpe, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and countless others are said to have stopped in.
Today, Fanelli Café still feels like old SoHo... the same wooden bar, red neon sign, and pressed-tin ceiling, all holding the ghosts of the city’s past. It’s a living time capsule, where you can sip a beer in the same spot New Yorkers have gathered for more than 160 years.
