The Hungarian Pastry Shop, located right across from St. John the Divine, has been a neighborhood staple since 1961. Family-run, cozy, and utterly unpretentious, the café feels wonderfully untouched by time.
Not to be mistaken for a retro throwback, The Hungarian Pastry Shop is a genuine old-time cafe, with pastries made from authentic, original recipes, prepared daily on the premises. Behind the glass counter is a tempting display of cakes, strudels, cookies, and flaky pastries that has lured generations of neighborhood regulars. The ritual here is delightfully simple. You place your order at the counter and find a place to sit down. They’ll find you by calling your name and will bring your order right to your table. There is no rush. You can linger all day with your book, paper, or laptop. When you are finally ready to go, you pay cash at the counter. Just like you’ve seen in the old movies. On a cold day, the place is cozy, dark, and inviting, but on a warm sunny day, it’s a treat to sit outside or take your tasty purchase (wrapped up in a little box) to the park across the street.
The cafe is packed with Columbia students, professors, and occasional visitors from the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. It is open from early morning to late at night. You can stay all day with your book or laptop and, of course, your bottomless cup of coffee.
This is a quote from The Hungarian Pastry Shop website, which cannot be improved upon:
Originally opened in 1961 by Hungarian immigrants, The Hungarian Pastry Shop has been a bedrock of the Morningside Heights community for 60 years. The cafe was purchased by a trio of Greeks in 1976 and is now in its third generation of ownership: operated by the son of one of those Greeks and a Jewish mother whose four brothers and sister used to camp out in the back on weekends and read every page of the Sunday New York Times while drinking bottomless cups of coffee. And not much has changed.
We are still committed to serving great pastry and great coffee. We still have no wifi. We still serve bottomless cups of coffee. And we still encourage patrons to sit as long as they like.
The Hungarian Pastry Shop takes advantage of being situated across the street from the close of The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine. You can sit outside and enjoy your coffee with a view of the impressive Cathedral and will likely experience a peacock’s serenade in addition to the normal cacophony of the city’s streets. And you can write to your hearts content. The Hungarian Pastry Shop is proud to have been a haven for authors of over 50 books, and you can come see the glory of their work displayed on our author’s wall. Unfortunately, that wall cannot contain the countless dissertations and papers written by graduate and undergraduate students from nearby Columbia University.
Come visit and sample the pastry, sit to talk or work, and come again tomorrow. Chances are we will remember your name, and chances are even better we will remember how you take your coffee.
Location: 1030 Amsterdam Ave, between 110th and 111th Streets
Leave a Reply