Where does a Queens diner go when the land under its booths sells for more than $10 million? For the Neptune Diner, the answer was Nassau County, to a building on Jericho Turnpike in Syosset that already knew how to feed a crowd.
The move is two stories stitched together. One is a farewell that played out on social media in July 2024. The other is a quieter reopening in early 2025, reported by Greater Long Island and filmed by FOX 5. Read side by side, they show what happens when a family keeps a name alive after the lease runs out.
Two Addresses, One Name
| Astoria | Syosset | |
|---|---|---|
| Address | 31-05 Astoria Boulevard, Astoria, Queens | 312 Jericho Turnpike, Syosset, NY 11791 |
| Status | Closed Sunday, July 28, 2024 | Opened February 2025, per Greater Long Island’s March 2025 report |
| Hours | Open 24/7 until the pandemic, then 7 a.m. to midnight, per Time Out | 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. at reopening; the diner’s Uber Eats page lists 7 a.m. to 10:45 p.m. |
| Menu, as reported | Lamb chops to Belgian waffles, per Crain’s | Breakfast sandwiches, decorated pancakes, omelets, a chicken burrata wrap, French onion soup |
| Backstory | A neighborhood landmark at the foot of the Astoria Boulevard subway stairs | The former Celebrity Diner |
Hours change, so call ahead before a long drive.
The Land Under the Booths
The building had layers before the lease became the story. Tsiamtsiouras told FOX 5 that a small diner opened on the spot in 1956, and that the dining room and back kitchen came about a decade later, in 1966. Time Out dates the structure to the 1960s and says it took the form regulars remember in the 1980s. That is four decades of Astoria mornings, late nights and post-flight meals, all of it resting on leased ground.
The trouble started with a lease. The Katsihtis brothers had owned the Astoria building since 1983 but never the ground beneath it, ABC7 reported. That land sold in 2018 for more than $10 million. A 35-year lease expired in 2019, and the brothers never reached a long-term deal with the new landlord.
Rumors of a closing ran for years. According to the Queens Post, the City Council unanimously approved a rezoning for a residential development on the block in 2022, and the family said at the time that Neptune was “not yet” closing. It took until the summer of 2024 for the answer to arrive. A manager told Crain’s the family had been about to renew when the property went into contract to be sold.
Neptune’s own waiter of thirty years, Frankie Tsiamtsiouras, put it bluntly to FOX 5. Business was fine. The building was going because developers wanted “the hot land.”
One Last Sunday
The farewell had been a long time coming. The Queens Eagle reported that Neptune had been “closing” for about three years, ever since the Council signed off on the development. When the date finally arrived, Sunday, July 28, 2024 felt like a wake with eggs. The Queens Eagle described neighbors from across Queens turning up for one last cheeseburger deluxe and one last black coffee, and one customer paying someone to take his shift so he could be there. Sarando Katsihtis, whose father owns the diner with his brother, told Crain’s that people were “coming in, taking pictures, having one last meal.”
One regular, Ann Marie Mikus, gave the Eagle the sentence that stuck: “Everything good is gone, or it’s going.” She was talking about a neighborhood that had already lost Mike’s Diner in Astoria, Shalimar Diner in Rego Park, Kane’s Diner in Flushing and T-Bone Diner in Forest Hills.
The goodbye spilled onto X, where Time Out collected a handful of posts. Patrick Hosken wrote that the closing was “an insane loss,” and that the place was as good at 2 a.m. as it was at dinner.
Frank Isola posted about the diner’s status as the place to go after landing at LaGuardia, and passed along a one-liner from Lamar Odom about the cash he had spent there.
The New York Post, per a Greek City Times summary, noted that David Bowie had once eaten at Neptune. The detail also surfaced in the farewell posts, though the sources reviewed for this piece do not say when the visit happened.
About Six Months Dark
Neptune did not vanish into the high-rise. Crain’s reported at the time of the closing that a third location was already in the works in Nassau County, though the younger Katsihtis declined to give details.
Greater Long Island filled in the rest in March 2025. Co-owner Constantine Doukas said the family found the former Celebrity Diner at 312 Jericho Turnpike in October 2024, and the Syosset Neptune officially opened the following February. Call it roughly half a year between the last plate in Astoria and the first in Syosset.
FOX 5 sent reporter Jodi Goldberg to film the reopening, and the segment is posted here. The family’s other two diners, Neptune II on Classon Avenue in Brooklyn (opened in 2012) and the Bayside, Queens location on Bell Boulevard (opened in 2020), stayed open through all of it, per the Queens Post.
What Changed in Syosset
Doukas told Greater Long Island the family gutted and renovated the space. Inside you find new booths, glossy tables and a 1950s movie-diner look, with a semicircular bar as the focal point. The menu keeps the staples, including decorated pancakes, a wide range of omelets and breakfast sandwiches, and adds a chicken burrata wrap and French onion soup. His sales pitch for the kitchen was simple: “We’re an American diner, but I recommend anything Greek, too.”
The ordering page gives a fuller picture of how big the menu is. Categories run from cage-free egg platters and a “Meet the Benedicts” section through Greek specials, Italian specials, prime steaks and chops, seafood, desserts and smoothies. That breadth is classic diner economics, a kitchen built so a table of four with four different cravings never has to split up.
The shell has its own history. A directory listing for the Celebrity Diner describes the building as a 1962 Swingle diner that was remodeled in the 1990s, though that listing was last updated in 2016, so treat the details as dated. For how builders of that era turned out prefabricated diners, see the story of Long Island’s diner manufacturers.
The restaurant’s Uber Eats page shows a 4.6 rating across 72 ratings as of this writing, a snapshot rather than a verdict.
Why This Move Is Different
Most closing stories end at the closing. Neptune’s kept going because a Greek-American family with three existing locations had the money, the staff and the stubbornness to start another. That pattern runs through the Island’s whole diner trade, a history laid out in how Greek families came to own Long Island’s diners.
The comparison with Bay Shore’s Peter Pan Diner is instructive. Peter Pan rebuilt on the same ground after a fire. Neptune had no ground to rebuild on, so the name moved to a new building instead. Both comebacks took months, and both leaned on a customer base that refused to let go. For the places that did not return, see the diners that disappeared from Long Island’s roadsides and the Forum Diner’s closing.
Questions People Ask
Where is the Neptune Diner on Long Island? At 312 Jericho Turnpike in Syosset, NY 11791, in the space that was the Celebrity Diner.
Why did the Astoria Neptune Diner close? According to ABC7, the family owned the building but not the land. The land was sold in 2018, the 35-year lease expired in 2019 and no new long-term lease was reached. The property was slated for residential development.
When did the Astoria location close? Sunday, July 28, 2024, after about four decades. Greater Long Island puts it at 41 years.
Are the other Neptune Diners still open? As of the 2024 reporting, yes. Brooklyn is on Classon Avenue and Queens is on Bell Boulevard in Bayside. Confirm hours before visiting.
What are the hours in Syosset? Greater Long Island reported 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day at reopening, and the diner’s Uber Eats page currently lists 7 a.m. to 10:45 p.m.
Sources
- Greater Long Island, “After closing in Astoria, the famed Neptune Diner reopens on Long Island” (March 11, 2025)
- FOX 5 NY, “Neptune Diner reopens in Syosset” (video)
- FOX 5 NY, “Neptune Diner in Queens closes after decades of service”
- ABC7 New York, “Neptune Diner in Queens closes after 40 years” (July 29, 2024)
- Queens Eagle, “One last late night at Astoria’s Neptune Diner” (July 30, 2024)
- Crain’s New York Business, “Astoria’s Neptune Diner to close after 40 years”
- Queens Post, “Astoria’s Neptune Diner set to close its doors for good this Sunday”
- Time Out New York, “New Yorkers react to the closure of Neptune Diner in Astoria” (July 29, 2024)
- Greek City Times, “Astoria’s Neptune Diner to close as high-rise takes its place” (July 29, 2024)
- Dinerville, Celebrity Diner listing
- Uber Eats, Neptune Diner, 312 Jericho Turnpike
- X post by Patrick Hosken, July 29, 2024
- X post by Frank Isola, July 28, 2024
