The Grand Central Oyster Bar & Restaurant is a seafood restaurant located on the lower level of

Grand Central Terminal Grand Central Terminal (GCT; also referred to as Grand Central Station or simply as Grand Central) is a commuter rail terminal located at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Grand Central is the southern terminus ...

at 42nd Street and

Park Avenue Park Avenue is a wide New York City boulevard which carries north and southbound traffic in the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. For most of the road's length in Manhattan, it runs parallel to Madison Avenue to the west and Lexington Avenu ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

History

The restaurant space was first opened as the Grand Central Terminal Restaurant. Although Grand Central Terminal opened on February 2, 1913, its opening was celebrated one day prior, February 1, with a dinner at the restaurant, arranged for Warren and Wetmore along with 100 guests. The restaurant was operated by The Union News Company. It closed briefly for renovations following a 1997 fire. Jerome Brody sold the Oyster Bar to employees in 1999, and died in 2001. Brody chose to sell to staff to preserve the union and employee satisfaction in his transition. As of 2017, all non-union, managerial staff are part of the Employee Stock Ownership Program (ESOP). The initial group of managers bought a near-majority of the company's stock with a loan between 1999 and 2001. They purchased the remainder between 2004 and 2008. In 2016, the

Zagat Survey The ''Zagat Survey'', commonly referred to as Zagat (stylized in all caps; , ) and established by Tim and Nina Zagat in 1979, is an organization which collects and correlates the ratings of restaurants by diners. For their first guide, covering ...

gave it a food rating of 22/30, "Very Good To Excellent". The Oyster Bar closed for a majority of 2020 during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. It briefly reopened for two weeks and closed again when its underground location failed to attract foot traffic. It then resumed its activities back to normal business from 2021 on.

Architecture

Its architecture features the vaulted, Guastavino tiled ceilings common in the era of its construction. The archway in front of the restaurant is also famous for an

acoustical Acoustics is a branch of physics that deals with the study of mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids including topics such as vibration, sound, ultrasound and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician ...

quirk making it a whispering gallery by which someone standing in one corner can hear someone standing in the opposite corner perfectly no matter how softly they speak.

Branches

Two Japanese branches have opened in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

. The first, the GCOBR Shinagawa, is located on the 4th floor of Atre Shinagawa in the

Shinagawa Station is a major railway station in the Takanawa and Konan districts of Minato, Tokyo, Japan, operated by East Japan Railway Company (JR East), Central Japan Railway Company (JR Central), and the private railway operator Keikyu. The Tokaido Shinkan ...

. The second, GCOBR Marunouchi, is located in Marunouchi MY PLAZA near Tokyo Station. A small branch is located in Terminal C at

Newark Liberty International Airport Newark Liberty International Airport , originally Newark Metropolitan Airport and later Newark International Airport, is an international airport straddling the boundary between the cities of Newark in Essex County and Elizabeth in Union Count ...

Gallery

File:GCT OB 2.jpg, Main entrance File:Oyster Bar Restaurant, Grand Central Terminal.jpg, Original decor File:Grand Central Terminal Restaurant 1941.jpg, alt=A large Art Deco garage building, Menu (1941) File:Grand_Central_Terminal_Restaurant_menu_1941.jpg, Menu (1941)

References

External links