Plan

A narrow Venezuelan place on 36th Avenue that has been griddling arepas on this block since the late 2000s. You order at the counter from a board of about twenty fillings and the reina pepiada is the one most people come back for. There are a dozen or so tables and the turnover is quick. It sits directly across 36th Avenue from Melrose Ballroom's door.

Mon to Thu, noon to 10pm. Fri, noon to 11pm. Sat, 11am to 11pm. Sun, 11am to 10pm

Ali El-Sayed opened this on Steinway Street in 1989 and it was the first Egyptian restaurant on the block. It seats about twenty and the menu changes with whatever he found at the market that morning, so what is written up and what is available are rarely the same thing. Vegetables get as much attention as the lamb. He cooks it himself and he will tell you what to order if you ask.

Tue to Sun, 1pm to 9pm. Closed Mon

The museum occupies part of the old Astoria Studios complex on 35th Avenue, where Paramount shot silent pictures before the industry moved west. The core exhibition is hands-on, with a recording booth where you dub dialogue over a film clip and cases of cameras, costumes and props. Thursday afternoon admission is free. There is also a 267-seat theater that programs its own screenings.

Thu, 2pm to 6pm. Fri, 2pm to 8pm. Sat and Sun, 11am to 6pm. Closed Mon to Wed

A nine-tenths of an acre site on 30th Avenue that was a school playground from 1971 until Astoria's Greek-American community raised the idea of turning it into a gathering place. A city-funded reconstruction began in 1990 with Stamatios P. Lykos as architect, laying out a central court with an amphitheater. Anthony Frudakis's bronze of Socrates, seated and mid-argument, was unveiled in 1993, and three fluted granite Doric columns under a curved entablature went up in 1996. It is a public park with benches and nothing to pay.

Open daily as a public park, 6am to 1am under the standard Parks schedule

A Greek specialty supermarket that spent close to forty years at 25-50 31st Street and reopened on Steinway Street on August 1, 2025 in a much larger space. It is shelves of olive oil and rusks, a long cheese and olive counter facing a butcher. Freezers hold phyllo and spinach pies. People come from outside the neighborhood for the feta and the loukoumades. Useful if you want to carry something away rather than sit down.

Mon to Sat, 8am to 9pm. Sun, 9am to 9pm

A pastry counter on the Little Egypt stretch of Steinway Street with trays of baklava and knafeh behind the glass and more of it stacked on the shelves. The knafeh is what people come for, shredded phyllo over sweet cheese with syrup poured over it at the counter. Ma'amoul and basboosa are in the same case. You point, they weigh, and you pay by the piece or by the pound.

Daily, 11am to 10:30pm

A full Queens diner on 21st Street with a counter, booths and a menu that runs from eggs to souvlaki to a slice of pie. It opens at five in the morning and closes at two most nights, which makes it the default answer in this part of Astoria at an hour when everything else has shut. In warm months the parking lot has been used for rooftop film nights and drive-in screenings.

Sun to Sat, 5am to 2am, except Monday, when it closes at midnight

The Bohemian Citizens' Benevolent Society was founded in 1892 and put up this building in 1910, and the yard behind it is still run by the society. It is long trestle tables under trees with a beer window at one end and a Czech kitchen indoors. The complex holds 800 people and operates year-round, so the garden is usable in October as well as July. You find a space at a shared table and go and get your own beer.

Tue to Thu, 5pm to midnight. Fri, 3pm to midnight. Sat, noon to 1am. Sun, noon to 10pm. Closed Mon

A traditional Irish pub on Broadway that calls itself the longest-standing one in Astoria, in a building that goes back to the start of the last century. The current owner took it over in the early 1990s and it has stayed a darts-and-regulars pub rather than being made over. The kitchen runs Irish standards and there is a back garden. It opens in the morning and holds a 4am license.

Daily, 8am to 4am

A Greek cafe on Broadway with a refrigerated case of galaktoboureko, ekmek and cakes cut to order, and a coffee counter that works from six in the morning until half past one the next night. People order a frappe and sit an hour at a marble-top table without anyone minding. There is waiter service at the tables rather than a line at a register. The Astoria branch is one of three, the others being in Bay Ridge and on the Upper West Side.

Daily, 6am to 1:30am