Top Long Island restaurant closures in 2025

South Bay Diner, Lindenhurst

Long Island is down another diner — Lindenhurst's South Bay Diner, on a busy stretch of Sunrise Highway, has closed after 24 years. Co-owner Steve Mourelatos cited financial hardships after the COVID pandemic as one of the reasons for the closing. The diner opened in 2000 after Mourelatos helped his father design its maroon-and-gold dining room. Its specialties included the Texas smokehouse burger ($19.99), avocado chicken salad wrap ($18.99) as well as chicken souvlaki lunch special ($16.99) served with a cup of soup, French fries, coleslaw and pickle. This is the second longtime diner closing in Lindenhurst within a year following the Lindencrest Diner's shuttering this past summer after nearly 40 years.

Trullo D'Oro, Hicksville

Ten years after they opened Trullo D’Oro, Gino and Maria Giannuzzi served their last meal on Christmas Eve. In a sea of samey-samey Italian American eateries, Trullo D’Oro stood out for its dedication to the foods and wines of the Giannuzzis' native Puglia. Gino’s kitchen specialized in two great Pugliese pastas, hybrid shapes that are made by hand like the fresh pastas of the north, but from hard semolina wheat and no eggs, like the macaroni of the south. Orecchiette were served here with meatballs. Larger, more elongated strascinate came with the very traditional Pugliese duo of broccoli rabe and sausage.