Along with the restaurants Food, Cafe Rienzi, the O.G. Dining Room and the Spring Street Bar, Fanelli Cafe was among the gathering places for the artist community that settled in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood from the Beat Generation era to the 1980s, between the neighborhood's times as a manufacturing center and an upscale shopping district. "Whatever work went on in the local studios was fueled by conversations that took place, and partnerships that formed, around these communal tables during the day and in neighborhood kitchens, bars and bedrooms after dark."
Artist Chuck Close was a habitué, as were boxing champion Rocky Graziano and singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. Close biographer Christopher Finch wrote:
In the late 1960s, Fanelli's daytime patrons were a comfortable mix of artists and the local blue-collar workers who had sustained the place prior to the artists' arrival. ... Until the Spring Street Bar opened in the early seventies, Fanelli's was the only saloon in SoHo proper that stayed open past about 6 p.m., and in the early evening after the blue-collar crowd headed for home, the cafe turned into an artists' bar. Since it was almost next door to Paula Cooper's gallery, it was also a place to hang out before and after readings or performances, though this was subject to [owner] Mike's unpredictable whims regarding closing time.
