CHANGE is not exactly something that’s embraced at Gino, the circa 1945 red-sauce Italian restaurant so evocative of old New York it’s been immortalized in a Woody Allen movie (“Mighty Aphrodite”).
So when it was decided late last month that, after 60-odd years, Gino would begin accepting credit cards, it was a break with tradition on the order of eating at ’21’ without a tie.
“Times change,” says co-owner Michael Miele, who came to the restaurant as a cook from Naples in 1967. “You have to go forward. Especially the younger generation, they don’t carry cash.”
Still, patrons are sensitive to any perceived encroachment on their clubby quarters. “It’s shocking — how dare they?” noted a longtime gentleman customer with just a touch of sarcasm when informed of the new credit card policy. (A piece of white tape now covers the word “No” that once preceded the phrase “Credit Cards Honored” on the handwritten menu.)
“Hopefully it doesn’t bring in an unwanted element,” laughs Dan Trosch, who’s been coming to Gino since he was in high school.
That seems unlikely. Most regulars hadn’t even noticed the change: The preferred method of payment is a house account settled monthly.
“I don’t want to say credit cards are déclassé, but I think the Gino customer was appreciated as a Gino customer and had been for a long, long time,” says Michael C. Barlerin, a patron since 1956.
Indeed, Gino’s charm lies in its refusal to bend to the day’s fashions.
Regulars arrive like clockwork and over the years have included Frank Sinatra (he was partial to clams oreganato, no garlic), Ben Gazzara, Mike Wallace and Gay Talese. And it’s telling that maitre d’ Franco Bona didn’t recognize Lindsay Lohan when she dropped in with then-girlfriend Samantha Ronson and Ronson’s mother, Ann Dexter-Jones. (That changed once paparazzi showed up.)
Then there’s that iconic zebra wallpaper. Made by Scalamandre, it’s been copied in film (“The Royal Tenenbaums”) and by customers (one brought in pictures of her new safari-themed bathroom). The last time it was replaced was after a fire in March 1972.
Still, a sense of possibility hangs in the air. Barlerin turns to bartender Bruno Blazina.
“The next question I’m going to have is, ‘When are you going to start serving [food] at the bar?’ “
“That will never happen,” responds Blazina.
“Credit cards were never going to happen, Bruno.”