NEW YORK - For a show supposedly about nothing, "Seinfeld" is still quite something, 30 years later.
At Tom's Restaurant in Morningside Heights, you won't see Jerry and the gang, but you will see plenty of "Seinfeld" references, and people taking photos right out front, including some who weren't even born when the show was a prime-time sensation.
"We specifically came to take a photo at Tom's," said 18-year-old Ian Caneff, who was visiting from Minnesota. "Every single episode of "Seinfeld" you come right to Tom's. I mean, that's the spot."
Above: The cast of NBC's "Seinfeld" (AP Photo)
The restaurant's exterior is featured in nearly every "Seinfeld" episode, and is still a tourist attraction all these years later. Owner Michael Zoulis said he gets visitors from all over the world, especially from Australia, which, he said, has a lot of "Seinfeld" fans.
"Our sign - Tom's Restaurant - is etched in history alongside 'Seinfeld,'" said Zoulis.
"Seinfeld" premiered on NBC-TV on July 5, 1989. Although shot on a sound stage in Los Angeles, it featured a number of New York facades and businesses, like The Original Soup Kitchen, which inspired the Soup Nazi character in the sitcom.
Kenny Kramer, the inspiration for the character Kramer, has made a career out of giving tours of Seinfeld's haunts, including Westway Diner in Hell's Kitchen, where Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David hatched the idea for the iconic sitcom.
Above: The iconic 'Soup Nazi' character (AP photo)
"On my tour in the last 10 years, I've gone to about one percent to about 10 percent, maybe 15 percent, of international tourists, who come to New York to do the tour because they're Seinfeld fanatics," Kramer said.
All these years later, they are still laughing at classic episodes, like the one featuring the puffy shirt, and at nine seasons worth of memorable phrases, such as "master of your domain," "re-gifting" and "Festivus."
"It was a show about all the stuff that happens in daily life," said Robert Thompson, a professor at Syracuse University. "They used to say it was a show about nothing. It was not about nothing. It just happened to be about things that most TV shows didn't do up until that point."
And after 30 years, it's a show that still entertains.