A glimpse of wild nights at SoHo bistro Raoul’s with Robert de Niro, Francis Ford Coppola

Tucked in the stacks of the “New York” section at McNally Jackson Books on Prince Street are a few copies of a slim white volume titled “My Nights at Raoul’s.”

The 112-page book contains about as many photos, all taken and self-published by the author and photographer, Pepe Diniz.

Diniz’s photos and anecdotes provide a glimpse into an older New York – the Italian and Portuguese side of SoHo in the 1970s and ‘80s.

Back then, Diniz was a server at the now-iconic French bistro on Prince Street, carrying plates from Raoul’s then-unknown chef Thomas Keller to the likes of patrons Warren Beatty and Miles Davis.

Diniz, who was born in Morocco to Hungarian and Portuguese parents, lived across Europe and moved from Paris to New York in 1974 to pursue a photography career. He knew he needed a restaurant job to both feed himself and pay the bills.

After being turned down by 22 restaurants across the city, he happened to take the photograph below during a stroll through SoHo.

As he walked away, he realized his fluency in French might get him in the door at this “Restaurant Français.”

French brothers Serge and Guy Raoul had opened the bistro less than two years earlier in December 1975 and hired Diniz on the spot.

“I’ve known Pepe my whole life,” said Karim Raoul, who took over from his father Serge in 2014. “He was part of the original crew.”

Diniz’s photographs still adorn the restaurant’s walls, and each one has an anecdote to match.

When legendary photographer Richard Avedon came to Raoul’s, “he’d usually order the truite à l’Alsacienne,” Diniz said in an email.

“You need to be somewhat skilled to debone it without splashing sauce all over the place,” said Diniz. “I think Avedon was more impressed with my deboning skills than my photos.”

Diniz, 78, who now lives in the Hudson Valley, declined to speak in-person or over the phone because he doesn’t do well “in impromptu settings,” but answered several emails with questions about his life and work.

When celebrities came in for dinner, Diniz would ask permission to take their portrait. After he missed the chance to photograph Diana Ross because he’d forgotten his camera at home, he started leaving it behind the bar during his shift.

Over the next decade, Diniz photographed Woody Allen, Roy Lichtenstein, Sophia Loren, Julia Child and many others.

“I brought pepper steak after pepper steak to Robert de Niro and Harvey Keitel when de Niro had to gain weight for his role in ‘Raging Bull,’” Diniz writes in his book. “Andy Warhol always showed up with an animated group.”

“When Pepe was there, it was really like a family,” said Karim Raoul. “My mother was hostess, my dad was working the floor, my uncle in the kitchen, my aunt was at the bar, and then Pepe and one other server – that was it. His book really captures that time.”

Raoul says that Diniz, who describes himself as Portuguese American, acted as an intermediary in the quarrels that arose in the tightly packed Italian and Portuguese neighborhood.

“Back then we had a garden, with tables and chairs set up and a grapevine growing in the back,” Raoul said. “There was a whole dispute with the Portuguese guy who lived upstairs and he ended up poisoning the vines. Eventually the city shut our garden down.”

After nearly 10 years, Diniz’s photography career had picked up enough steam that working at the restaurant no longer made sense – he did freelance editorial and portrait work as well as reporting on news and events in Europe and Africa.

Diniz said the idea of collecting his photos and memories of the era came about during the pandemic. After he self-published his book in 2022, a friend told him about McNally Jackson, whose new location is two blocks away from Raoul’s.

“Because it’s time-consuming and costly, I had 50 copies of the Raoul’s book printed,” Diniz said. McNally Jackson is the only store that carries them.