Piu Bello is gone. At least the American one. The Forest Hills one.

I, for one, will miss it. It was a nice go-to place for ice cream and outside lounging in the summer. While the rest of the neighborhood was shuttered like a ghost town at midnight, Piu Bello still had a crowd.

Of course, it had its detractors. The food was admittedly mediocre diner stuff. The service was somewhat lazy. But it was a relaxing place to be and it was the only place in the vicinity that had lots of outdoor seating where you could just hang out for hours without spending money on more than a coffee. Try doing that at any of the 70th restaurant row places. And enjoy your forty minute hike to Metropolitan to sit at Theater Cafe.


NOW

Ooh, maybe L'arte de Gelato will open there and carry on the tradition of summer ice creamerying? Nah, who am I kidding? Remind me to get an unlimited MetroCard. I have a feeling that I'll spending a lot of time this summer in Manhattan and Brooklyn again.

According to the Queens Central Forums rumor mill, Piu Bello will be co-running Positano. Positano, the Italian restaurant on Queens Boulevard that sticks bikini-girl flyers under your windshield wiper blades, will apparently not keep the Piu Bello name and there are even questions about whether or not the Piu Bello gelato will even be served there.

I guess we'll see in a few months, but as for now, it would seem that reports of Piu Bello's death are not quite yet greatly exaggerated.