PALM BEACH, FLA. — The "season" is now over in Palm Beach, the winter home of some of the nation's wealthiest citizens, and of course, President Donald Trump. The once brief season—four months between Christmas and Easter—now extends from Thanksgiving to Memorial Day and even longer, depending on the weather in the Hamptons, Newport, Nantucket, and the other summer resorts to which billionaire Palm Beachers and their poorer multi-millionaire neighbors flee. As the temperature climbs, Palm Beach, or at least most of its more fashionable haunts, is increasingly deserted. But not Green's.
On the first weekend in May, the 82- seat diner/pharmacy that has been serving breakfast and lunches since 1938, was bustling as usual. The sizzle of its grill could be heard all along its Formica counter, as two grill chefs flipped burgers, slid strips of bacon and scrambled eggs onto thick white plates, and poured batter into the hot iron molds to produce its signature waffles and pancakes. Moses, a strikingly thin Black waiter, was busy serving mugs of bad coffee to groggy customers.
A Palm Beach institution that was built and owned by two immigrant New York Jews, Green's takes pride in never closing— not on Christmas or Easter, Rosh Hashanah, or even on New Year's Day. "It's been seven days a week forever, 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., with food service ending at 3 p.m.," said Allen Rutman, whose family bought the diner back in 1993 and has been its notoriously grumpy manager ever since. Even before the purchase, Rutman worked here as a pharmacist.
Green's is an ecumenical gathering place. Worshippers from the Modern Orthodox Palm Beach Synagogue across the street slip in after Saturday services to grab the weekend Wall Street Journal and savor an egg cream or one of the diner's famed milkshakes while their prescriptions are filled. On Sunday, parishioners from the Basilica of St. Edward crowd around its rickety, glass-covered tables. John F. Kennedy spent hours here as a boy, along with other members of the Kennedy clan. Rose Kennedy and Jackie Onassis were both fond patrons. JFK himself would occasionally return after moving to Washington D.C., first as a senator, and even as president. Stories abound— some of which might be true—about the ways in which he dodged his Secret Service detail to eat here. The late president's nephew, current Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., recently dropped in during a trip to Mar-a-Lago, President Trump's winter White House.
Everyone, except Donald Trump, goes to Green's—construction workers and landscapers, pencil-thin blonde women in yoga pants, surfers in flip-flops, golfers and pickleball players, Palm Beach cops (over 20% of whom come from New York), real estate agents, venture capitalists, moguls and beach bums, celebrities and town officials. Dale Coudert, who runs an eponymous institute, is a fixture here, sharing news and gossip with other island regulars who meet each morning for breakfast. The vast parking lot outside Green's is one of the few free lots left on the Island, whose population swells from 9,000 to 30,000 in season. Bentleys, Mercedes, Rolls-Royces and Teslas co-mingle with workmen's trucks and beat up jalopies.
The thought that Green's might disappear sends a chill down the spines of local workers and high-flying billionaires alike. No one cares what you drive to Green's, or wear at Green's. No one cares about your balance sheet or the size of your portfolio. Here being mega-wealthy won't buy you a seat if the "first-come, first served" counter and tables are full.
Regulars now routinely complain about the soaring cost of a meal here. But while Green's raised its prices sharply after COVID, as most of the nation's restaurants and retail shops did, the diner's comfort fare—bacon and eggs, burgers, and BLTs— remains roughly a third the price of whatever the elegant Sant Ambroeus is serving its tony patrons at the Royal Poinciana shopping center just half a mile away. Discreet informality is Green's hallmark. "I know what everyone likes to eat for breakfast," said Denise, one of the diner's long-standing waitresses, "even if I don't know their name."
At Green's, patrons are known and served by first name only. And Denise knows almost everyone. Like most of the 23-member staff, she has worked there for years. Joe Jordan started working at Green's after graduating high school soon after it opened. Hired as a grill cook, he eventually retired—48 years later. Ivy Scudder worked at the sandwich board alongside Jordan for over 37 years. In 1981, Sybil Blount, a popular waitress, got married at Green's. Elderly patrons told the local paper they still remember seeing Bob Green, who with his brother Morris "Murray" Green, built the diner, walk Sybil down the aisle past the tables and counter stools.
At a glance, the first weekend in May looked like any other day at Green's. But it wasn't. Regina Scully, a veteran documentarian, disrupted the diner's usual rhythm by filming interviews at Green's with some of its most loyal patrons. "This is a preservation project for me," she said. "A place that brings people together in a community must be protected. Given our epidemic of loneliness, there should be a Green's in every American town." Her father, Alan Kulik, can usually be found standing under Green's green-and-white striped awning at 6 a.m. waiting for the place to open.
The film crew wasn't the only disruption, however. As Scully's cameras rolled, a wave of anxiety swept through the diner sparked by an ugly rumor: Green's was being sold. Was it true? alarmed patrons and staff asked one another in hushed tones.
"We are not closing Green's!" Spencer J. Schlager, the diner's new owner, who, like the Greens, is also Jewish, assured me a day later. "Some of the rust stains will go away. We will spruce it up a bit. But we intend to keep Green's around for as long as possible." The "we" is CS Ventures, a joint-venture controlled by Schlager and his partner, Charles Rosenberg. The venture owns several other buildings on the island – four of them on Royal Palm Way, six stores on Worth Avenue, one of the world's most elegant shopping streets, the Palm Beach Daily News Building on the corner of South County Road and Brazilian Avenue, and the building inhabited by another popular Palm Beach restaurant, BrickTop's, known for its scrumptious barbecue ribs at still reasonable prices.
Two years ago, the Landmarks Preservation Commission tried to ensure that the diner/drug store would survive by giving it landmark status. Though a 12-page "Designation Report" outlined the diner/drug store's "cultural" and "social" importance to the island as one of its oldest "legacy" businesses, the commission rejected the designation, by a 5-to-2 vote, after Green's owners opposed the designation.
While its new owners may well preserve the diner, such iconic places in Palm Beach, only 18 miles long and three-quarters of a mile wide at its thickest, are increasingly threatened. Just this year the island's sole gas station was sold. In May, Sprinkles, a beloved ice cream parlor, announced it was closing after four decades in business. Between October of 2024 and this past April, eight real estate deals on the island crossed the $30 million threshold. Two empty waterfront lots totaling 2.6 acres on the northern end of the island sold for at least $160 million, according to the Palm Beach Daily News, known as the Shiny Sheet for its high-grade paper that does not smudge its readers' fingers.
Schlager would not say how much he paid for Green's, calling the sale private. But the Palm Beach rumor mill puts the price at $14 million. Green's and Amici, a high-end grocery that share the one-story building, may well be protected by another anomaly. The Catholic church, which owns the parking lot they share, has placed a restriction on its lease of parking to the stores. Neither will be able to use the lot if the owners build a structure that is more than one-story high. "Perhaps God is protecting Green's after all," said Bob Slater, an accountant and diner regular who volunteers as an usher at St. Edwards on Sundays. "It's hard to imagine Palm Beach without it."