When the season finale of “Severance” airs Friday, March 21, fans of the psychological thriller may once again find themselves fixated on Pip’s, the quiet roadside diner where characters unravel secrets over coffee and eggs. But just on Route 28, beneath the slopes of the Catskills, that same booth-lined room serves a different purpose: it’s real, and very much open for breakfast.
Phoenicia Diner, a 1962 modular diner relocated from Long Island decades ago, has long been a fixture for locals and weekenders. Now, thanks to Apple TV+ and director Ben Stiller, it’s become a character in its own right.
“You’re not going to beat the Phoenicia Diner. You really can’t,” said Ryan Smith, the show’s second unit director and supervising location manager. “It’s just amazingly untouched. For a show that is very concerned with inside versus outside lives, the way the diner is set up with the booths, you have a great relationship with the windows to the inside and the outside world.”
Stiller, Smith said, was “very sold on it” after the team scouted more than 50 other diners. “The name was changed to Pip’s, but other than that we did very little,” he added.
“Severance,” a dystopian sci-fi drama, explores identity, memory, and corporate control through the lives of employees at Lumon Industries, where a mysterious surgical procedure splits their consciousness into two separate identities: the work you and the personal you. As the characters uncover disturbing truths about the company and themselves, the show blends psychological thriller, workplace satire, and emotional drama with surreal, often haunting visuals. Phoenicia Diner is central to that world—and has become a real-world destination especially among fans.
“It was like kind of the little diner that could,” said Courtney Malsatzki, the diner’s director of operations. “Through the years, it just kept getting bigger and bigger.”
The diner’s owner, Michael Cioffi, discovered the place on a drive with his wife and kids. “He had recently sold off his business and had a non-compete,” Malsatzki said. “They were driving by. And he just made a comment about how it’s in such a perfect spot and it’s so beautiful and someone should really revitalize it.”
What followed was a careful transformation that kept the soul of the diner intact.
Inside, the operation runs on practiced rhythm—and familiar faces. Mona Senecal, a waitress of 12 years, treats the dining room like a stage. “I look at the customers as they’re my audience,” she said. “I also look at the customers as I would like to be treated as I’m going out someplace to eat. I want them to leave happy. That’s our goal.”
Her colleague Susie Lopes, who joined the staff after retiring three years ago, agreed. “I’m having the best time of my life,” she said. “The location, the food, the people, the staff. They’ve all been here a long time. We’re all like a family here. It’s really, really a good place.”
Production crews for “Severance” filmed there for both seasons, renaming the space “Pip’s.” “We did very little,” Smith said.
The filming, some of which was conducted during the pandemic, required daily testing, expanded crews, and careful coordination. Still, Malsatzki ensured her staff was compensated. “We paid them completely, and we paid them as they were making tips on a busy week, too.”
Since the episodes aired, the diner has drawn fans from across the country. “Some people have been TikToks going wild with it,” Malsatzki said. “The TikTokers have found us.”
Visitors often ask the same question: which table was used in the scene? “And they want to know where they stand… Table six. I thought it was table four, but table six. I’ll go with table four,” Lopes said with a laugh. “It has become a destination. It really has.”
The diner’s appeal runs deeper than aesthetics or television cred. On a recent winter morning, Pine Hill resident Gigi Loizzo met friends Chandra Valianti and Berns Rothchild for breakfast before attending the funeral of the town’s fire chief.
“It was a somber occasion,” Loizzo said. “But the diner has always been a place where we find comfort and connection, especially during times like these.”
That spirit of connection is built into its daily operations. “I often joke that we’re a nonprofit because part of my job is looking at how profitable we are so we can take that money and find new initiatives and put them into the community.”
Will “Severance” return to the diner in Season 3? Smith doesn’t know—the writers’ room is still at work—but he’s hopeful. “It’s become a character in the show,” he said. “There’s no reason why it wouldn’t come back.”
But even if the cameras don’t return, the regulars will.
On quiet weekdays, locals drift in from Pine Hill and Woodstock, from Kingston and Mount Tremper, ordering coffee, catching up, sometimes grieving, sometimes laughing. “We’re all like a family here,” Lopes said.
That sense of connection—of gathering together under one roof, around one table—may be what gives the diner its gravity, on screen and off. “Please stop by,” Lopes said. “We’d love to see you.”
In a world that often severs people from one another, Phoenicia Diner brings them back together.
Noah Eckstein is the editor-in-chief of The Overlook. Send correspondence to noah@theoverlooknews.com.