Curtains could close forever on a beloved Manhattan dinner theater – unless its lifeline fundraisers complete their second act.
The West Bank Café — a Hell’s Kitchen eatery where the likes of Stephen Sondheim and Tennessee Williams have hobnobbed — is hoping their celeb clientele can come to their rescue after it fell on hard times during the pandemic.
“I lost two Tony Awards in June, but I will not lose the West Bank Café,” said Broadway Producer Tom D’Angora, who is among the group of patrons who have started a GoFundMe campaign, which has so far raised $50,000 of an $800,000 goal.
“Especially in 2024, places like this are so few and far in-between. This is actually a home for us. And it’s not just me. Thousands and thousands of people feel that way.”
The eatery and theater, where Sean Penn and Al Pacino have dined, is facing closure as soon as August because of the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The business was hit hard as they did not qualify for any federal assistance loans, due to a “technicality,” D’Angor said.
The lack of a COVID bailout first caused the cafe to turn to GoFundMe in 2020, when fans raised $350,000 to keep the lights on.
D’Angor said he is upset that it’s come to this again.
“This isn’t something we have to do every two years,” D’Angora said. “There’s a very very clear reason why and it’s not okay. For all the unjust things in the world, when we can rectify something that’s unjust, I think we have an obligation to do so.”
Owner Steve Olsen started the café in 1978 at age 24 — and is still running it at age 70. He said he would hate to see it go, with history such as it being the spot where comedienne Joan Rivers had her final performance in the 80-seat Laurie Beechman Theatre in the basement.
“This is a safe house for artists,” he said. “[Actress] Martha Plimpton said in 2020, ‘Who else will have us?’”
He couldn’t believe the outpouring after the cafe’s most recent financial troubles were revealed.
D’Angora told The Post he now hopes to tap into the celebrity base who have supported the establishment, and eventually host a gala with Broadway stars in the later stages of fundraising.
Over the decades, the restaurant has served as the incubator for artists such as Warren Leight, Lewis Black, Rusty Magee, Karen Finley.
“Everyone who is anyone comes in here,” D’Angora told The Post. “It was Cheetah Rivera’s favorite restaurant . . . But then you have us, the smaller theater people, the Broadway kids, the lesser-known people … and Steve Olsen, the owner, still treated you like the biggest star in the world. The exact same way he treats Sean Penn is the exact same way he treated me when I was 25 years old.”
Olsen told The Post that New York’s artist community would feel a empty without the establishment as budding stars have celebrated their “highest highs” and lows surrounded by friends.
“A few weeks ago it was 8:30 p.m., and I was in the dining room and I looked around and there were seven Tony Award winners and four Pulitzer prize winners scattered around the dining room,” Olsen said.
While the tentative closing date for the restaurant was set to be Aug. 24, Olsen told The Post business has “quadrupled” since the closure announcement.
The closing has now been postponed “indefinitely,” depending on how future fundraising fares.
Olsen, who has canceled nearly 150 shows booked at the Laurie Beechman Theatre as a result of the closing, is now in the process of making arrangements to hold them again.
“Everybody that came in [since the announcement] asked how they could help and how they could save the place,” Olsen added. “This is a legacy business … [but] fifty cents won’t get you on the Subway anymore. We can’t landmark it, so it’s up to the community.”
