City
BUSINESS
Caffe Reggio has been going strong on MacDougal St. for 92 years.
Caffe Reggio fi nds a formula for survival
BY GABE HERMAN
Very few Village establishments have survived
the trying tests of times, including
rent hikes and passing fads, like frozen yogurt,
ramen and beyond. Even fewer of the survivors
have remained family owned.
Caffe Dante, at 79 MacDougal St., for example,
was sold after 100 years to an Australian company,
which made alterations and changed the name simply
to Dante.
Caffe Reggio is a rare holdout that is still going
strong under family ownership. It has been at 119
MacDougal St. since 1927, and started out as a
barbershop run by Dominic Parisi. He soon began
serving espresso and found the location’s destiny.
Parisi sold the cafe in 1955 to the Cavallacci family,
and Hilda Cavallacci ran it until 1976, when her
son and current owner Fabrizio took over.
Reggio still has many neighborhood regulars,
along with getting its fair share of tourists. Longtime
regular Joseph Marra, 85, who ran the Night
Owl Cafe on W. Third St. for years, said Reggio has
survived because Cavallacci owns the building.
That’s how a family business can make it, with
Raffetto’s pasta shop nearby on W. Houston St. being
another rare example. Le Figaro Cafe closed in
2008 at 184-186 Bleecker St. after its rent shot up
to $40,000 a month, Marra said. Le Figaro was
bought by a corporation in 2004, according to The
New York Times.
Even local shops with reasonable landlords still
have to deal with increasing real estate taxes to go
along with rents and other fees. Tea & Sympathy,
at 108 Greenwich Ave., as The Villager recently reported,
has started a GoFundMe online fundraiser
for owner Nicky Perry to cover such costs.
But Caffe Reggio seems to be in a better position
because Cavallacci owns the building. General
manager Lena Batyuk noted that the cafe has
been willing to change with the times, now offering
brunch and new milks, like almond, coconut and
COURTESY CAFFE REGGIO
Dominic Parisi originally opened Caffe Reggio
as a barbershop, then began serving
espresso to customers.
the very popular oak milk, for example. Of course
the cafe continues to serve classic espresso drinks,
including cappuccino, with the cafe claiming it was
the fi rst place to serve it in America.
“We try to adapt as much as we can,” said
Batyuk, who has been there for 12 years. “One of
those things is the avocado toast,” she said with a
laugh. The cafe also offers free WiFi.
But much of the cafe’s appeal still lies with its
unchanging character. Its interior sports old Italian
paintings, one from the Caravaggio school, a ceiling
fan used in fi lming “Casablanca,” and a nickelplated
behemoth espresso machine from 1902 that
was used in the cafe until 1981. Batyuk said it actually
still works, but just isn’t as effi cient as modern
equipment.
“You can see pictures from the ’50s and it’s basically
the same,” Batyuk said of the cafe. She recently
served a group who attended New York University
in the ’50s and were regular Reggio customers,
and remembered coffee made from the original
PHOTO BY GABE HERMAN
espresso machine.
Of course, N.Y.U. has greatly impacted Greenwich
Village over the decades, and not for the better
according to many locals, including Marra.
“N.Y.U. changed the neighborhood,” he said.
“You don’t have that sense of community anymore.”
As Marra sat in Caffe Reggio on a recent morning
— he comes every Wednesday and Saturday —
he noted there was no music playing.
“Places play loud music and the radio, you can’t
talk to people,” said. “Here they don’t play anything,
so you can have a conversation and connect.”
Marra fi rst came to Caffe Reggio with his father
when he was 6 years old.
“It’s the same, the interior is authentic,” he said.
That charm is what keeps bringing TV and fi lm
shoots to the cafe, recently “The Marvelous Mrs.
Maisel” and “The Deuce” from TV and the movie
“Inside Llewyn Davis,” to add to classics fi lmed
there, like “The Godfather Part II” and “Shaft.”
Many celebrities and legends have stopped by
over the years, and continue to drop in. Most recently,
Carey Mulligan was a regular while she was
in a play around the corner, Batyuk said. David
Bowie called Reggio one of his favorite spots in his
adopted city.
Owner Fabrizio Cavallacci lives in Italy and visits
the cafe every year for a few weeks, Marra said.
Through messages relayed to Batyuk, Cavallacci
said he will defi nitely keep ownership of Reggio for
the rest of his life, and there is no price he would
sell it for. He said he has been at Reggio and on
MacDougal St. his whole life, and that it’s more
than just a restaurant to him.
“He’s in his 50s, but he’s an old-school guy,”
Marra said.
The combination of sentiment in appreciating
the past, and the practicality of owning the whole
building, seems to be the winning formula for a
family business to stay alive in the Village these
days.
Schneps Media TVG January 10, 2019 15