The hottest item at New York bars and restaurants isn’t not on the menu, it’s on the hostess stand.
Matchbooks are all the rage. Regular diners are collecting them, trading them with fellow enthusiasts and showing off their finds on TikTok, where the hashtag #matches has more than 64,000 posts.
Restaurant owners are struggling to keep up with the demand.
“No matter how many boxes [of matchbooks] we order, we seem to run out within 48 hours,” Eric Griego, co-owner of Please Tell Me, a bar in Williamsburg, told The Post. Patrons are coming into to the watering hole as much for the matchbooks — which are festooned with a stylish neon pink martini glass design — as they are for the drinks.
Tiffany Foo, 25, a Manhattan-based consultant, got inspired to start her collection when she stumbled on videos on TikTok of people sharing their fire-starters from New York restaurants.
Then she found the website MatchbookTraveler.com, which lists restaurants and bars around New York and across the country that carry unique matchbooks.
She was inspired to check out The Mercer Hotel in SoHo and Employees Only bar in the West Village for the matchbooks alone.
“I go out to eat a lot, so now I’m always on the lookout,” Foo told The Post.
She started her collection earlier this year, and it’s grown to over 100 matchbooks from hot spots such as Misi in Williamsburg, Bad Roman in Midtown and Arthur & Sons in the West Village.
“I found most places just from seeing other people’s TikToks and noting down the restaurants or bars,” she said.
Of course, the non-smoker never ignites them. She is planning to frame those from her favorite restaurants — Carbone, Sant Ambroeus and Bar Pitti — in a shadow box.
Jeffrey Williams, the founder of MatchbookTraveler.com, started the website 20 years ago. But, recently, it’s caught fire thanks to TikTok.
“Just when matches were supposedly dying out, a new interest in collecting them developed,” Williams said.
Restaurants are grateful to have an easy strategy to lure in fickle Gen Zers.
Jordana Maurer, director of sales and events at Upstairs, the rooftop bar at The Kimberly Hotel in Midtown, told The Post they’ve recently seen an uptick in young guests looking for a strike.
“Ironically in the last two months we have had three separate guests come in asking for matchbooks and mentioning that they were part of a matchbook collection club,” she told The Post.
“We knew people liked collecting matches but had no idea there were clubs for it.”
For some, it’s a cross-generational hobby.
Long Island native Karla Covell, 30, collects with her father, Robert Covell, 67.
He’s shared his treasures, which include iconic matchbooks from The Plaza Hotel and Windows on The World, the restaurant atop the north tower of the original World Trade Center.
She’s added to the stash with matches from Hotel Delmano in Williamsburg and Rolo’s in Ridgewood, Queens.
“Not many people smoke anymore so you couldn’t find them for a while,” Covell told The Post.
“It’s been a sweet revival — something we [me and my dad] do together,”
