Beloved Wythe Diner physically relocated from longtime NYC neighborhood to Steiner Studios for movie set

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s…a diner?

The Wythe Diner, a beloved railcar eatery dating back nearly 60 years, was physically lifted from its longtime Williamsburg home, carried across Brooklyn and plopped down in the Brooklyn Navy Yard Saturday, where it will remain as a movie set for Steiner Studios’ future productions.

The cozy ’50s-style diner was gingerly lifted into the air by a crane and placed on a flatbed truck that cruised about two miles south to the Brooklyn Navy Yard. There, the retro restaurant will be installed as one of the production studio’s permanent sets.

The old-fashioned caff, which opened in 1968, already comes with a storied resume in film, including features in “Men In Black 3” and “The Good Shepherd.”

Still, the diner — which hasn’t functioned as fully running restuarant since 2018 when it was Mexican joint Cafe De La Esquina — fell on hard times and was sold to a real estate development company for $12.5 million in the summer of 2025.

The gurus planned to level the historic eatery to construct a complex with ground-floor retail and 28 apartments on the upper stories in its place — until Steiner Studios stepped in.

The studio’s chariman, Doug Steiner, saved the diner from demolition in the eleventh hour, offering to relocate the structure and assured that his company would take good care of the relic down at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

He explained that the restaurant was “one of the few places” he and his pals would dine at “before major gentrification” hit Williamsburg.

Steiner admitted that he wasn’t originally “in the market for a diner” but was proud to be the one to “preserve” it.

“I live in the neighborhood. There used to be only four or five places to eat in Williamsburg, and it’s a cool thing,” he told CBS News.

“I hope that Steiner Studios gets to put it in all kinds of movies,” he added.

Hit television shows previously filmed at the studio’s Brooklyn Navy Yard site include “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “Inventing Anna,” and “Only Murders in the Building.”

Sandy Stillman, who owned and operated the diner under the name Relish Restaurant from 1997 to 2010, was just happy to see his “inanimate child” immortalized in one piece.

“It’s kind of a monumental day for me, one of the best days I’ve ever had,” Stillman told CBS News during the move on Saturday.

After Relish Restaurant and then Cafe De La E closed, various companies rented the space for pop-up shops and events at the defunct diner, including Chanel.