The Long Island Bar & Restaurant was owned and run for over 50 years by Emma Sullivan, her husband Buddy, and her cousins Pepita and Maruja.  Buddy and Emma took over the bar from Emma's father, Ramon Montero, who opened it in 1951.  Emma and her cousins still live a block from the bar, and four generations of their family are based in the bar's surrounding neighborhoods.

Joel Tompkins and Toby Cecchini restored and re-opened the bar in 2013.  Cecchini owned the Manhattan bar Passerby.  He is also the author of Cosmopolitan: A Bartender's Life and a columnist for The New York Times' T Magazine.  Tompkins co-founded the underground restaurant Coach Peaches.

The Long Island Bar's kitchen has been re-born under the guidance of Corwin Kave, formerly the Executive Chef of Fatty Crew, who helped shape the menu and hired our chef, Gabriel Martinez.  Martinez, a native of Texas, formerly worked at Uchi in Austin and spent the last two years at Alinea in Chicago.