Nabe fave shutting after 45 years

A famed Queens diner that was used in “The Wolf of Wall Street” is shutting its doors after 45 years — and the owner blames rising rent, stagnant business and the slow death of old New York.

“The neighborhood has changed,” Demi Karayiannis, who since 1974 has owned the Shalimar Diner at 63rd Drive and Austin Street in Rego Park with her husband, told The Forest Hills Post.

“Our original customers got older, moved to Florida and passed away . . . and different people have come.”

The diner’s lease is up at the end of November, and they couldn’t afford their landlord’s latest rent hike after a lengthy negotiation. They’ll be serving up their last plates of pastrami and cheeseburgers this Sunday.

“Everybody is very upset. Everybody’s crying. My phone doesn’t stop ringing. It’s been like a family here to everybody . . . we have customers here that were babies in the strollers, and now they come with their babies in the strollers,” Karayiannis told Queens.com.

“It’s very sad, but there’s nothing we can do about it.”

Karayiannis’s husband, Chris, who was working on Wednesday, told The Post he was “too upset” to discuss the closure.

“Are you gonna move to a new place?” regular customer Karmela Ben-Air asked him on her way out of the restaurant.

“I’m 71 years old,” Chris Karayiannis said, shaking his head sadly. “No.”

Like many other Queens diners, which make up an undeniable part of the borough’s identity and have been slowly closing in recent years, the worn green and red booths and snappy service at The Shalimar have become a fabric of the neighborhood.

“When they opened the doors here 44 years ago, my husband and I were standing in line waiting to get in. No joke,” said Judith Levy, 91, who has come to the eatery for lunch every day since her husband passed. “It was so crowded, and we were one of the first customers, and since then I’ve been coming. It’s like my home away from home.”

Aside from being a favorite neighborhood haunt, The Shalimar has tasted its fair share of celebrity over the years.

It’s teal and white pendant lights appeared in the “The Wolf of Wall Street” in a scene featuring Leonardo DiCaprio’s Jordan Belfort and Jonah Hill’s Donnie Azoff.