At the back of 444 Columbus Avenue, past the pewter bar, the ceiling turns to glass. The arched roof over the Hotel Endicott's Palm Room has been there since the building went up between 1889 and 1891. As of November 6, it covers the second dining room of Boucherie Upper West Side.
The Palm Room has had a long line of tenants, and it has outlasted each of them. Fourteen blocks south, the same thing is happening at 1 West 67th Street. There, the Hotel des Artistes is bringing back Café des Artistes under its original name, with Howard Chandler Christy's murals still on the walls. On the Upper West Side, the rooms are what last. This fall's newcomers seem to know that, because both are building around what the rooms already were.
A room older than any of its tenants
The Endicott started out as an apartment house. In its history of the building, Landmark West says Charles A. Fuller built it to designs by architect Edward L. Angell. Plans were filed in April 1889, the first 81st Street building was finished in 1890, and the second opened in 1891. Landmark West describes the building's Pompeian brick and terra cotta, its steam heat, its own electric plant, and interiors with marble tile and onyx wainscoting. The original hotel also had "a glass-roofed Palm Room." A 1907 photograph of that Palm Court, shared with Landmark West by building owner Robert C. Quinlan, shows the room the neighborhood still knows.
The building and its Palm Room have changed hands and uses many times since then:
- 1979: A New York Times real estate column reported that the former Endicott Hotel was being converted into cooperative apartments, and it tied that conversion to a revival along Columbus Avenue.
- 1990: The building was photographed when it was designated as part of the Upper West Side/Central Park West Historic District.
- The restaurant decades: Corvo Bianco, Calle Ocho and Main Street each occupied the space, according to I Love the Upper West Side.
- January 2012: Calle Ocho had recently left. While the space waited for its next tenant, Quinlan lent it to Landmark West for a fundraiser called "La Noche Cubana."
- Until 2025: The Milling Room ran here for about a dozen years and closed in 2025. The Starbucks next door closed the same year.
That makes at least five restaurant names in one room, plus a co-op conversion and a preservation party. Each tenant redecorated, and the glass roof stayed.
What Boucherie built around the glass roof
The newest operator chose to make the room bigger. Boucherie combined the old Milling Room space with the Starbucks storefront next door into a single 255-seat restaurant. The front room is a brasserie with a pewter bar, the Palm Room is the second dining room, and a semi-private room inside the main dining room holds up to 40 guests.
The design is styled to match the building's age. Patch reported red velvet chairs, white tablecloths and mahogany walls. The brand describes the location as "inspired by the carefree spirit and the philosophy of La Belle Époque era."
Boucherie is run by The Group Hospitality, which opened the first location in the West Village in 2016. The company also runs Boucherie Union Square, Petite Boucherie in Greenwich Village and La Grande Boucherie near Rockefeller Center. This is its first room north of Midtown.
Here are the details for a first visit, as reported by I Love the Upper West Side and West Side Rag at the opening:
| Boucherie Upper West Side | |
|---|---|
| Address | 444 Columbus Avenue, between West 81st and 82nd Streets |
| Hours | Monday to Friday, 11 a.m. to midnight; Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to midnight |
| Weekday lunch | $33 prix fixe, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. |
| Tuesdays | No corkage fee, limited to two 750ml bottles or one magnum per reservation |
| For a group | 48-ounce tomahawk for two, $195 at dinner |
| On the menu | Escargots, steak tartare, moules frites, boeuf bourguignon, seafood platter, dry-aged steaks |
| Reservations | OpenTable; full menu on Boucherie's website |
The address also helps. Patch puts the restaurant at the West 81st Street corner, across from the American Museum of Natural History. A museum afternoon can easily end with lunch under the glass roof.
At 1 West 67th Street, the board chose the original
Café des Artistes shows the same pattern more directly. Eater reported in September that the board of the Hotel des Artistes ran a search for a new operator and chose AirMax Hospitality. AirMax is led by Ariel Arce and Max Katzenberg, the team behind Tokyo Record Bar, Roscioli NYC, Pearl Box, Leonessa and Big Pearl Caviar. The space had been the Leopard at des Artistes, which closed in February 2026 after a 15-year run. AirMax is bringing back the name that came before it. The reopening is planned for early 2027.
Like the Palm Room, this room started as part of a residential building. Eater describes the original Café des Artistes, opened in 1917, as a ground-floor dining room for residents of an apartment building built for artists, many of whose apartments had no kitchens. Over time it became a destination for performers, musicians, writers and artists drawn to nearby Lincoln Center. Its best-known era began in 1975, when George and Jenifer Lang took over, with dishes such as salmon four ways, pot-au-feu and tarte à l'oignon.
The murals are the constant. Christy, an illustrator who lived in the Hotel des Artistes, began painting his wood nymphs in 1934. They stayed on the walls after Café des Artistes closed in 2009, through the Leopard's full run, and into the current plans.
The founders also have personal ties to the room. Eater reports that Arce grew up in Hell's Kitchen and celebrated her graduation from LaGuardia High School at Café des Artistes. Katzenberg was born a few blocks away.
Neighbors can contribute directly. AirMax has invited former diners, staff, neighbors and anyone else connected to the restaurant to send in stories, photos and mementos at [email protected]. Eater reports the team will draw on those responses as the restaurant takes shape. In its own roundup, West Side Rag described the plan as "returning to its original glamour."
If you have a matchbook, a menu, or a photo from a birthday dinner under the nymphs, the team has asked for it.
One block west, a former pub gets a new tenant
The same blocks between West 81st and 82nd Streets have another recent example. On September 25, TALEA Beer Co. opened at 441 Amsterdam Avenue in the space St. James Gate, the Irish pub, left in 2024. The new tenant kept the room in use for food and drink.
Tara Hankinson and LeAnn Darland founded TALEA in 2019. They started by selling beer door to door, opened a Williamsburg location, and now have five other locations in the city. Their bestseller is Al Dente, an Italian-style pilsner, and their sours include Pina Colada Splash and Rainbow Cookie. Hankinson told West Side Rag that both founders have young children and wanted a space that works for a date night and for a Sunday morning with the kids.
TALEA's site lists Detroit-style sourdough pizzas, Bavarian pretzels, salads, toasts and cheese plates, along with coffee and nonalcoholic drinks. It opens at 10 a.m. every day and stays open until 10 p.m. Sunday through Wednesday, 11 p.m. on Thursday, and midnight on Friday and Saturday.
Put together, the two openings cover a full day on one block-long stretch. Coffee and a pretzel on Amsterdam can come before a weekday prix fixe lunch on Columbus, and both rooms open by 11 a.m.
Today two of the three rooms are open, and the nymphs at 1 West 67th Street are waiting for early 2027 and for whatever memories neighbors send in.
At Kay Moon, we pay attention to how rooms like these carry a building's history, because the same is true of the prewar apartments and townhouses on the streets around them. If you own a home with original details and want to know how that history reads to today's buyers, start with What's Your Home Worth?