Jackson Hole Diner

Jackson Hole Diner is a classic roadside diner at 69-35 Astoria Boulevard North in East Elmhurst, Queens, only a short distance from LaGuardia Airport. The stainless-steel diner was manufactured in 1952 by the New Jersey-based Mountain View Diners Company and originally operated as the Air Line Diner, a name inspired by its location beside one of New York’s principal airports. Its aviation connection survives in the large original neon sign above the entrance, complete with a streamlined passenger aircraft, while much of the building retains its mid-century appearance with polished metal siding, broad windows, booths, counter seating and vintage decorative details. The restaurant later became part of the Jackson Hole group, a family-owned New York chain established in 1972 and best known for its large seven-ounce hamburgers, but the older Air Line identity was deliberately retained rather than covered over. As a result, the building remains unusually close to the diner seen in films several decades ago, with the original Air Line sign still one of its most recognisable features.

Jackson Hole Diner has appeared in Prince of the City (1981), Goodfellas (1990), Blue Bloods (2010–2024), Bull (2016–2022) and FBI (2018–). The location has been used both as the real Air Line Diner and as fictional restaurants elsewhere in the New York area. Its most famous appearance is in Goodfellas (1990), where Martin Scorsese uses the parking lot and unmistakable neon sign during one of the first scenes showing Henry Hill as an adult criminal, but the diner had already appeared almost a decade earlier in Sidney Lumet’s Prince of the City (1981).

In Prince of the City (1981), the Air Line Diner is used during Daniel Ciello’s increasingly complicated work with investigators probing corruption in the New York Police Department. Ciello, a narcotics detective who has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors while attempting to protect his former partners, goes to the diner with Sergeant Sam Edelman to meet Rocky Gazzo. The real exterior on Astoria Boulevard is used for the meeting, fitting naturally into Sidney Lumet’s extensive use of genuine New York streets, police buildings and neighbourhood locations. The diner is only a relatively small part of the sprawling story, but its appearance predates the location’s much more famous association with Goodfellas by almost a decade.

In Goodfellas (1990), the Air Line Diner appears immediately after the story jumps forward from Henry Hill’s childhood to his adult life in organised crime. Henry and Tommy DeVito wait outside the diner near the airport, watching for an opportunity to steal one of the cargo trucks moving through the area. A driver pulls into the parking lot and leaves his truck unattended while he goes inside. Henry and Tommy simply climb into the cab and drive away, leaving the furious driver running after them as they disappear. The robbery establishes how routine crime has become for the adult Henry and introduces the lucrative airport cargo thefts that form an important part of the mob’s activities. The diner’s large Air Line neon sign is clearly visible behind Henry and Tommy and remains in place today, making this one of the Goodfellas locations that has changed surprisingly little since filming.

In Blue Bloods (2010–2024), Jackson Hole Diner appears in the season-five episode “In the Box” (2015). The episode centres on Anthony Drake, a distressed father who takes Detective Maria Baez hostage inside a police precinct after being served with a restraining order preventing him from approaching his estranged wife Heather and their daughter Penelope. Jackson Hole is used for the meeting between Assistant District Attorney Erin Reagan and Heather Drake as police desperately try to end the hostage situation peacefully. Erin attempts to persuade Heather to allow Penelope to speak to her father, arguing that seeing his daughter may be the only way to prevent Anthony from being killed and to save Baez. Heather is understandably reluctant to place her daughter anywhere near the crisis, leaving Erin to balance the safety of the child against the increasingly dangerous situation unfolding at the precinct.

In Bull (2016–2022), Jackson Hole Diner appears in the first-season episode “Teacher’s Pet” (2017), although the story presents the restaurant as being in New Jersey. Jason Bull is assisting the parents of teenage student Jordan Henderson in a civil case against his former teacher Susan Bryant, who began a sexual relationship with him while he was still at school. The case becomes increasingly difficult when Jordan insists that he loves Susan and chooses to remain with her. After evidence emerges that Susan had sex with him while he was still below New York’s age of consent, she and Jordan flee across the state line. Bull and investigator Danny James track them to the diner, where Bull sits down with Susan and tries to make her reconsider what she is doing. Rather than simply threatening her with prosecution, he pushes her to confront the imbalance in the relationship and the consequences it will have for Jordan, eventually helping bring their attempt to run away together to an end.

In FBI (2018–), Jackson Hole Diner appears in the season-eight episode “Roleplay” (2026), during a storyline that unexpectedly reaches into assistant special agent in charge Jubal Valentine’s childhood. A murder investigation leads the FBI to Lucas Williams, a teenager whose cryptocurrency scam has accidentally stolen more than $300,000 from the Russian Bratva. When Lucas’s younger sister is kidnapped, Jubal discovers that the New York organisation is now headed by Andrei Ovechkin, his closest childhood friend from the two years Jubal spent living in Moscow. Jackson Hole provides the setting for Jubal’s reunion with Andrei, the two men sitting across from one another in the diner while Jubal tries to establish whether his old friend’s organisation is behind the kidnapping. Andrei denies involvement and explains that the stolen money is insignificant to him, eventually helping Jubal identify the younger criminals trying to impress the Bratva. The familiar diner therefore becomes the setting for one of the episode’s quieter scenes, built around the strange reunion of two childhood friends who have ended up on opposite sides of the law.

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