Why Locals Keep Returning to This Timeless Brooklyn Restaurant From 1900 - AOL

Bamonte's Restaurant is an old-school Italian restaurant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, founded in 1900 and operating continuously for more than a century. The restaurant sits on Withers Street near Union Avenue in a shake-fronted building updated with fieldstone facing and new glass. Inside, the space feels narrow and enveloping, with multigenerational decor and theatrical touches such as drapes, lampshades, and a red tiled ceiling. Photos of families and notable figures line the walls, including Telly Savalas and Michael Gazzo. The front bar area includes a bottled beer cooler and phone booths with working pay phones, reinforcing the restaurant’s distinctive sense of place.

"Bamonte's Restaurant is located on Withers Street, about half a block off Union Avenue, in Brooklyn's Williamsburg neighborhood, where it has been for more than a century in an old shake-fronted building that has been updated with some fieldstone facing and new glass. Founded in 1900, it's the oldest continuously-operating restaurant in Brooklyn. (Some folks may point to Peter Luger, but Luger started as a bowling alley and went through a few iterations before becoming the institution it is today.)"

"When you walk into Bamonte's, the history of the place settles onto your shoulders and envelops you, like a mist blowing in off the East River. The restaurant is about two subway cars deep but not much wider than a single train tunnel. The decor is... multigenerational. Suspended from a red tiled ceiling, you'll find drapes like curtains from an off-Broadway stage and lampshades that look more like dresses worn by dancers from the Ziegfeld Follies."

"Photos of families and luminaries, like Telly Savalas (of Kojak fame) and Michael Gazzo (best known as Frankie Five Angels from The Godfather), adorn the walls. In the front bar area, where people gather to wait for a table or locals pop in for a drink, you'll find a cooler full of bottled beer bumping up against a pair of phone booths with working pay phones and rel"

Read at AOL.com