HELL’S KITCHEN — The longtime Renaissance Restaurant on Ninth Avenue has served its last meal.
The diner, at 776 Ninth Ave., between 51st and 52nd streets, closed for good last week, according to a report and a relative of the owner of the building housing the eatery.
A sign hanging in one of the restaurant’s front windows states the “store is for sale” and is seeking a tenant interested in a “long lease.”
“The owner is elderly, and they just couldn’t do it anymore,” the relative of the owner, who declined to give her name, said when reached by phone Wednesday.
The woman said she’d already received a few calls asking if the restaurant had relocated.
“A lot of people are upset that a long line of diners has gone down,” she said, estimating that the diner had opened around 1989 or 1990. “I know they were there for many, many years.”
Crazy Town Blog, which first reported the diner’s closure, said the eatery had recently cut back on its hours after operating as a 24-hour diner for years.
“The menu was gigantic, the portions were huge, the food tasted great, the prices were reasonable and the seating went on forever so you could always get a table,” the blog wrote.
The eatery shuttered after serving food for the last time on Saturday, the blog reported.
Patrons lamented the closing on the diner’s unofficial Facebook page.
“My entire NYC existence just flashed before my eyes. How could we let this happen?” one user wrote.
“I can’t even begin to comment on this. It’s too much to fathom,” another said.
