Johnny Nicholson founded Café Nicholson in 1948 under 50/50 partnership with his good friend Edna Lewis, a self-taught cook who became one of the world’s most iconic African American chef, author, teacher, with countless awards and museum recognitions, and honored as the Grande Dame of Southern Cooking.

This treasured collection once adorned the walls of Café Nicholson, servicing as the luxurious backdrop to the opulent setting that was part of its lavish interior décor.

Because he was the first to create such a lavish masterpiece work of art in a New York City restaurant, the installation of this Spanish tile masterpiece earned Johnny Nicholson the distinction of being named, “New York City Innovator of Luxurious Restaurant Interior Décor Designer”

No one had ever decorated a restaurant with such lavish interior décor which Johnny Nicolson once called “fin de seiche Caribbean of Cuba style” and what a restaurant reviewer described as “a turn-of-the-century Parisian pleasure palace.”

“Until Cafe Nicholson, there were only two kinds of restaurants in New York: checked tablecloth places serving spaghetti and meatballs or velvet-banquette places like Le Pavillon,” the Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar editor, Babs Simpson, told Vanity Fair in 1999. “In a way, Johnny created the first theme park.” 

Cafe Nicholson attracted members of high society as well as artistic, literary, and cultural elite. 

Cafe Nicholson food was almost an afterthought, wrote Craig Claiborne of the New York Times in 1967, and said it was the most fascinating restaurant, a rather phenomenon, a bizarre and popular establishment. Cafe Nicholson known for its lavish Greco / Roman interior, inspired by Cafe Greco in Rome, made it the ideal background for fashion magazine photo shoots such as Vogue, Harper Bazaar, Vanity Fair, and various advertisements. Woody Allen used the restaurant for a scene in his 1994 movie “Bullets Over Broadway.” 

Cafe Nicholson attracted artistic and literary figures such as Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, Jean Renoir, Andy Warhol, Marlene Dietrich, Judy Garland, and many more. A distinguished American photographer, Karl Bissinger, documented the scenes and many of his original photographs are included in the collection and his book, “The Luminous Years: Portraits at Mid-Century.”

Cafe Nicholson's clients list included a range of celebrities, movie stars, politicians, old New York aristocrats, and the young and up-and-coming. In the center of this luxurious, theater-like setting was Johnny Nicholson energetically running the show with his parrot, Lolita, perched on his shoulder.

Tiffany & Company’s design director, John Loring, commented, “High society loves to meet high bohemia, and at Johnny’s that made for a certain cafe society.”

Cafe Nicholson now holds a unique place in New York City’s culture and social memory.

The Triennale di Milano Library Museum wrote: “Eclectic place, a meeting point between the mainstream and the creativity, Café Nicholson fits well into the cultural and culinary New Yorker social fabric.” This made Cafe Nicholson’s 19th-century Spanish tile/ murals into a treasured collection for almost 50 years of New York City’s history in the restaurant’s luxurious interior design and the culinary arts. Now for the first time, the public will have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to own one of these elaborate treasured pieces.