Nick's Restaurant, one of Madison's oldest, will have its last day in May (2024)

Nick’s Restaurant on State Street, in business for 65 years, and one of the oldest restaurants in Madison, will close May 11.

Dino Christ, who has owned the diner and bar with his brother Tom since 1996, said a Mexican restaurant will be going into the space. The brothers owned the restaurant with their father until he died in 2009, when they fully took it over.

“It’s very bittersweet and it’s still kind of sinking in because we just signed Friday morning,” Christ said.

He then worked Saturday and announced the news Sunday with a Facebook post.

“It was time. When you know it’s time, you know, and my brother and I knew that it was time,” he said Monday. “I’m going to miss a lot of things and friends, but it’s time to move on.”

A real estate listing last August said that the 3,000-square-foot space was immediately available for a five-year lease at $29 per square foot annually. It said that the modified gross rent would be $7,200 a month.

The ad called it a prime location in the heart of State Street, noting that the historic restaurant and bar is across from the Overture Center and only a few doors down from the Orpheum Theater.

Christ said the business has been in his family since the 1960s. He said his father became partners with the original owner a year or two after it opened.

The lease with the new owners is contingent on the liquor license getting transferred, which should happen next month, he said.

Christ, who owns the building, said last year that business had been just OK lately. “Ever since COVID, it’s definitely been a struggle.”

In his Facebook post, Dino said that Nick and Serena Christakos opened Nick‘s restaurant in 1959. Two years later, Arist Christ moved to Madison from Greece and became partners with the Christakos.

Christ then returned to Greece, married his wife, Anastasia, and then moved back to Madison where together they ran one of the most famous and long-lasting restaurants in Madison, the post said.

The post said that Nick’s was patronized by actors, musicians, politicians, athletes, novelists, artists, lawyers, “and on and on.”

“We have been visited by literally every category of person, and we’re so proud of that,” it said.

The post thanked all the employees over the years, saying “some came and went” but others became lifelong friends or were called family.

Naming them all “would take up probably another six pages,” it said.

Nick’s menu includes burgers, sandwiches, salads, steak, fried chicken, deep-fried cod, broiled cod and Greek specialties.

Christ said he’s not sure what’s next for him, but he intends to take a month or two off and see what happens from there.

“Walk in and feel like you’ve stepped into a time capsule,” the restaurant’s website says. “Nick’s, with its old-fashioned booths, starving artist prints and dim light coupled with the smell of made-from-scratch meals makes us one of the more unique places in town.”

An Isthmus article from 2009, when Nick’s was celebrating its 50th anniversary, notes that the restaurant has drawn famous musicians, actors and writers including Joan Baez, Johnny Cash, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Roger Ebert, Bret Easton Ellis, Lenny Kravitz, Tom Wopat and Robin Williams.

“It’s almost like the staff lunchroom for us,” Tom Carto, then-president and CEO of the Overture Center, said in the Isthmus story. “Nick’s is one of the most popular stops for our audiences before and after any show here at Overture. On symphony nights the place is packed. I’m there for the fish fry every Friday.”

“No question, it’s a State Street legend,” Carto told the Isthmus reporter.