Montague Diner is an instant classic in Brooklyn Heights

By Scott Lynch

Every neighborhood deserves a great diner. Brooklyn Heights just got a doozy.

Montague Diner opened its doors this past Monday morning at 6 a.m. and over the next 17 hours banged out hundreds of orders to a steady stream of eager locals. Omelettes and latkes. Cheeseburgers and tater tots. Roast half-chickens and slices of pie. Grilled cheese sandwiches and bowls of tomato soup. On and on and on. Everything you could want for breakfast, lunch and/or dinner, with everything on the menu available all day and night.

You can get anything you want at the Montague Diner restaurant (Photo by Scott Lynch)

Montague Diner is from a team of Brooklynites, including a crew of high school friends who then recruited some of their friends from the movie biz to help design the place, plus the hospitality geniuses Halley Chambers and Kip Green from Fort Greene’s excellent Margot. Plus — and this is key to the remarkably quick build-out — another friend who happens to be a general contractor.

The space itself looks amazing. The overall design is a masterclass in how to preserve that familiar old-school vibe without getting kitschy or turning the place into a theme park. And while the layout is the same as when the place was Happy Days Diner (we were all hard-pressed to remember what it looked like before that, when the Snack Pit, a.k.a. the “Snake Pit,” was here), a total renovation freshened the look.

Grub Street did a nice job breaking down individual elements of the design, from the 1940s light fixtures and the handsome, custom-made red booths to the vintage glassware and dishes and the bold pinwheel tile floor. Other cool, thoughtful details here include the “library” of daily newspapers at the luncheonette counter, the coat closet by the front door (a Happy Days holdover), the gumball machine and, soon, actual house accounts, so local high school kids can put their meals on their parents’ tab (which 14-year-old me would have abused the hell out of).

The Montague Diner menu is expansive without feeling overwhelming. There are about 65 dishes total; crowd-pleasers abound. The blueberry pancakes, which I had with a side of thick, chewy bacon, are delicious. Nothing fancy, “not, like, foie gras pancakes” as co-owner Gabriel Nussbaum puts it. Just a really satisfying plate of food.

Blueberry pancakes, $16, with a side of bacon, $7 (Photo by Scott Lynch)

For many years my diner go-to was the corned beef hash with eggs at the Broadway Restaurant near 102nd Street (R.I.P.). Drunk or hungover, it hit the spot every time. Montague serves a superb rendition of this dish, the meat and potatoes chopped into little cubes, salted like a winter road, and charred all to hell. Break those sunny-side-up yolks over everything, dump on some hot sauce, pair with a mug or two of strong black coffee, and you will feel restored.

Corned beef hash and eggs, $16 (Photo by Scott Lynch)

The tuna melt is served open-faced. The six-pack of mozzarella sticks are exactly as crisp and gooey and well-seasoned as you want them to be. And the only pasta on the menu is terrific, a hefty mound of al-dente orecchiette loaded bitter broccolini and, optional but highly recommended, crumbles of spicy sausage.

Open face tuna melt, $13 (Photo by Scott Lynch) 

The French fries, a diner baseline dish if there ever was one, are excellent, and should be ordered for yourself or the table no matter what else you’ve got going on. In one of the few non-traditional (but also definitely fun) touches here, you can get “a pile of fries and a bottle of champagne” for $99. Perfect date night? Perfect date night.

If a bottle of bubbly seems a bit much, other beverage options include a full coffee program, smoothies and juices, bottled Coke, $8 beers and a friendly and accessible wine list.

“I want somebody to come in and be able to say, ‘I want a glass of white wine,’ and that’s all you have to talk about, and you get something crisp and easy to drink,” says Green. “But if you’re in the mood to nerd out and have a nice bottle of light burgundy with your roast chicken, you can do that too.” A full liquor license will arrive later this year.

Here’s a random list of other things that look good here (that we haven’t tried yet): the egg salad sandwich, Buffalo wings, a Ritz cracker and Nutella combo, the veggie and hummus “hippie sandwich,” the spinach and cheese omelette, the bacon cheddar burger with smokey mayo, and the $13.50 early-bird breakfast special (eggs, bacon, toast, potatoes, coffee, OJ).

“We’ve been talking about trying to do a restaurant in Brooklyn Heights for a long time,” co-owner Ben Gross tells Brooklyn Magazine. “A bunch of us live in the neighborhood, and my dad and his brother ran a bar and restaurant called the Montague Street Saloon in the 1980s and ’90s down the street. A diner’s the sort of place that we all actually want to hang out and eat. It’s exciting to do this in a neighborhood that has meant a lot to all of us our whole lives.”

Montague Diner is located at 148 Montague Street, between Henry and Hicks Streets, and is currently open from 6 a.m to 11 p.m. daily, with 24-hour service as the eventual goal. Note that the place has been packed in the early going: Even with 68 seats a friend was quoted an hour-long wait at lunch yesterday, and a pair of fairly A-list celebs were turned away Tuesday night because there wasn’t a table. A limited number of reservations are available for dinner.