Where is the real Monks restaurant?
Monk’s is a fictitious coffee shop. The exterior shots are of Tom’s Restaurant located in Manhattan on the corner of 112th Ave. and Broadway. A co-owner of Tom’s (Michael Zoulis) says he doesn’t care for the Seinfeld show, but also mentioned that he was never given a penny to have his restaurant used on the show, so maybe that’s why. Sidenote: It’s been mentioned that Tom’s Restaurant was the inspiration for the Suzanne Vega song entitled, interestingly enough, “Tom’s Diner”. While it is true that *a* Tom’s Restaurant is the inspiration for that song, there was some doubt as to whether is was the Tom’s on 112th and Broadway in Manhattan, or the Tom’s in Brooklyn, on Washington Ave and Sterling Place. There’s said to be a plaque on the wall in the Brooklyn Tom’s that sheds light (The inscription of the plaque is, “I came, I saw, I wrote. -Suzanne Vega”). In “Portrait of an Artist”, a promotional album released in 1987, Vega puts the issue to rest. It was the Manhattan Tom’s. (Maybe some
