Hinsch’s reopening date set

A Bay Ridge landmark which abruptly closed its doors inSeptember will reopen under new ownership on Monday, November 28,just in time to great the hordes of holiday shoppers that willdescend on nearby 86th Street.

The new owners of Hinsch’s Luncheonette, on Fifth Avenue near85th Street – Gerard and Lola Bell and William Gardella – made theannouncement at the November meeting of the 68th Precinct CommunityCouncil where they, and partner Roger Desmond, were honored forhosting a free Thanksgiving dinner for senior citizens each year attheir restaurant, Skinflint’s.

Your good deeds didn’t go unnoticed, community councilPresident Ilene Sacco told the restaurateurs, who have providedboth Thanksgiving and Easter dinners to the elderly for threedecades.

Ridgeites might well consider the saving of Hinsch’s among them.News of the closure of the vintage eatery – which has alreadylogged 63 years in the neighborhood — raised a chorus of dismayamong those who had frequented the restaurant, which has long beena cornerstone of coming-of-age memories for many in theneighborhood, who enjoyed its classic burgers, waffles, homemadeice cream and soda fountain treats

Since mid-October, the partners have been renovating the vintageeatery, with the goal of bringing it back to life – an action thatlong-time resident Tommy Gross, who painted the message on the doormourning the restaurant’s closure, definitely appreciates.

Hinsch’s, to me, is an institution, said Gross, who recalledgetting up from writing his love letter to the eatery on the doorto find a woman behind him in tears.

To see that kind of emotion from a store closing means that thestore meant so much to so many, Gross stressed. It is a specialplace.

Will Gross – whose family has lived in Bay Ridge since the 1890son the same block – be at the restaurant’s grand re-opening?

I’ll be there before it even opens, he promised.