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Prospect Heights eaters are mourning the surprise loss of the Garden Cafe, which closed abruptly last month after a pioneering 24-year run on Vanderbilt Avenue.
A true mom-and-pop operation since John and Camille Policastro opened it on the then-hardscrabble avenue in 1985, the cafe built a following with gourmet food that was practically unavailable in the pre-gentrified borough.
“It was historic,” said Jay Crockett, ironically, a descendent of another historic pioneer, Davy Crockett. “It was a forerunner for all restaurants here. It had a lot to do with the Vanderbilt boom.”
Yet many neighbors wondered why the Policastros would choose just this moment to shut down for good.
“We’ve been here a while, and it was just time,” Camille Policastro said. “We needed to retire.”
Policastro, who worked the eight tables in the front room while her husband manned the stove in the back, understood why her customers were in such shock.
“There wasn’t much when we got here,” she said. “Take-out places. That’s what makes it so hard for people.”
The place was never fancy, choosing instead to focus on simple dishes executed perfectly in a humble, barely decorated, setting.
The hard work paid off in 2004, when the restaurant received a 28 out of 30 score in the influential Zagat guide, the same rating as Le Bernardin that year. Shortly after the guide came out, the food critic for the New York Times, a Manhattan-focused broadsheet, decided to see why people were buzzing about the mushroom bisque, the quail with mashed lima beans, and the beet salad with goat cheese.
“The Policastros do not go for fancy pyrotechnics,” critic Frank Bruni wrote in 2004. “But they have imagination. … It could last another 18 [years].”
It didn’t make it to 2022, as Bruni hoped, and that’s why locals are sobbing in their soup.
“I don’t know anyone who isn’t sad,” said Crockett. “We loved it.”
©2009 Community Newspaper Group
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