World-famous Palm Too steakhouse shuts down

Just One More Restaurant Corp., owner of the fabled Palm steakhouse chain, is now one restaurant fewer.

Palm Too, a close cousin to the beloved original Palm steakhouse, abruptly shut down Tuesday at 840 Second Ave. at East 45th Street, marking the end of a Midtown East Side dining era.

With its famous celebrity caricature murals, it seemed like a relic of old-time New York even though it opened across the avenue from the original 1926 Palm in 1973.

The reason for the closing wasn’t known. But Palm Too was involved in a convoluted legal tangle involving bankrupt Naples, Fla., Just One More; its owners, the Ganzi and Bozzi families; former family member partners; and Tilman Fertitta’s Landry’s restaurant chain, which bid last month to buy the Palm’s 25 eateries out of bankruptcy for $50 million.

Palm Too had struggled for years as a newer generation of steakhouses were taking business from old-school places such as Ben Benson, which shut its doors a few years ago. But sources said the main cause of Palm Too’s demise was the legal struggle for control of the parent company, which also claimed a Palm in Philadelphia this week.

Although there are now Palms around the country and two others in Manhattan, only Palm Too shared the mystique of the original, which closed in 2015.

Palm outposts on the West Side and in Tribeca remain open.