After 33 years, the Green Owl is leaving its perch on Atlantic Avenue.

For the past few years, patrons have been asking David Gensman, owner of the old-fashioned downtown diner, whether he was going to stick around. The cash-only restaurant, at 330 E. Atlantic Ave., seemed out of place as mom-and-pop stores closed and were bulldozed to make way for swank eateries with expensive menus.

A year ago, Menin Development bought the Green Owl’s building on the corner of East Atlantic and Southeast Fourth avenues. Gensman talked with the new owners about rent but said he didn’t think he’d be able to pay the $100 a square foot that was becoming standard for avenue frontage. Gensman said he had been struggling to pay $80, a 30 percent increase from the previous year. The Green Owl’s future seemed uncertain.

“I didn’t want to have to charge $14 for an omelet,” said Gensman, who charges $7.95.

But Menin recently announced the company had agreed to move the landmark across the street, to property the developer owns at 11 SE Fourth Ave. The Green Owl won’t face Atlantic anymore, but that’s fine with Gensman.

“The Green Owl is an institution that’s part of the landscape of Delray Beach,” said Marc Yavinsky, Menin’s executive vice president. “Everybody we talked to in the city loves it.”

Menin has become deeply invested in the city, Yavinsky said. It moved its corporate headquarters, and staff of 10, from Palm Beach to Delray Beach, and now owns two buldings on Atlantic Avenue. The company president also moved from Palm Beach to Delray Beach, Yavinsky said.

The Green Owl site will become a Capital One Café, which will offer coffee, free WiFi and banking services.

Gensman, whose mother bought the restaurant in 1983, said he has mixed feelings about Atlantic Avenue’s ritzy transformation but is happy with the move. His current site is showing its age, with creaking floors, too-low ceilings and an aging kitchen.

“Thirty-three years is a long time to stay in one place,” Gensman said. “There won’t be as many issues to deal with.”

The new site will be smaller, with 65 seats instead of the current 85. Gensman said he is unsure if he will move the restaurant’s old-fashioned lunch counter, or how many of the dozens of owl knickknacks and paintings, given as gifts from diner patrons, he will transport to the new site. He said he is still negotiating his new rent with Menin.

He expects to be out of the current restaurant in the end of June and will reopen at the new site in November.

“I hope he keeps the same ambience,” said Doris Walker, of Delray Beach, a patron of 17 years who was having a late lunch at The Owl with her friend Susan Cupp of Asheville, N.C. “He has such a big following. All the locals will stick with him.”

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