Meeting House opens August 20 at 901 S. Howard Ave. in SoHo, where Ciccio Restaurant Group is reclaiming a name that belonged to The Old Meeting House — a neighborhood diner that ran at the same address for more than 50 years before Daily Eats moved in. Daily Eats closed June 15; Ciccio turned the space around in just over two months.
The revival is not a wholesale reinvention. The operator's Instagram says the same staff stays on and guest favorites carry over, including the steak and eggs bowl. Ciccio, which has operated in SoHo since the 1990s and now runs approximately 30 restaurants across the region, is deploying one of its more neighborhood-specific concepts at this address — a diner format tethered to a block with a traceable history, rather than a concept built for replication.
The group's regional footprint includes Fresh Kitchen, Green Lemon, Taco Dirty, and Water + Flour. Against that portfolio, Meeting House is Ciccio's most locally rooted brand at this moment — its reach defined by a single SoHo address rather than a regional rollout. The decision to restore the original name rather than introduce something new reads as a deliberate acknowledgment of the address's commercial history.
The incoming menu's most expanded element is the burger program, which the operator puts at approaching double digits. The mac and cheese is built on JayLuigi pasta and aged cheeses — a production detail that places the dish closer to a kitchen signature than a standard side. Service covers lunch, dinner, and weekend brunch.
The Old Meeting House's 50-plus-year run at 901 S. Howard is the kind of tenure that's rare on a commercial dining block. Daily Eats occupied the space after that run ended, until its June 15 closure. Ciccio's turnaround — retaining staff, carrying over core menu items, and restoring the address's original name — makes the handoff feel less like a reboot than a restatement of what was already there.
With its existing SoHo presence, Ciccio arrives at Meeting House with an established footing in the corridor. What remains to be seen is whether the restored name reaches back past Daily Eats' audience to activate the longer institutional memory of The Old Meeting House — and whether that history translates into sustained traffic after the August 20 open.
