Real-life restaurants in New York, GTA IV ones are based on

If you're not familiar, you pilot a character around a virtual cityon mayhem-filled missions. Previous incarnations of the game have beenpraised for the incredibly detailed and vast cities that your characterroams. We were surprised to see some (somewhat familiar) sights in thescreenshots.
'Steinway Beer Garden,' aka The Bohemian Beer Garden
The "Steinway Beer Garden" is obviously a stand-in for the Bohemian Beer Gardenin Astoria, Queens, where neighborhood locals and packs of rovinghipsters swarm to swill grog on warm weekend afternoons. The virtualversion even shares a name with nearby Steinway Street.
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And here's what the place looks like in real life:

Photograph from Josh Bousel on Flickr
'Sprunk' Cola Sign, aka The Pepsi Cola Sign
I haven't played much GTA, so I'm not familiar with themock brands that inhabit its world, but I'm assuming from the virtualsign below that "Sprunk" is some sort of cola. I think it's a safeassumption, since the in-game billboard is totally based on thePepsi-Cola sign in the Queens neighborhood of Long Island City, justacross the East River from Manhattan.
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Long Island City is an up-and-coming neighborhood full of grittywarehouses and disused factories, but developers are trying to lurefolks there with new waterfront recreation and luxury co-op buildings.The fake version captures this mix nicely, as you can see above.
Here's the real-world version of the Pepsi sign, in all its night-glow glory:
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Photograph from Ritwikdey on Flickr
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Photograph from Ritwikdey on Flickr
And here's that same sign from the back. I took this a couple yearsago, before they were very far along on building a public space aroundthe sign:

The Domino Sugar Refinery
Update: Looking a bit more closely at the Sprunksign screenshot just now, I noticed that the building in the backgroundbore a resemblance to the Domino Sugar Refinery in Williamsburg. Doncha think?

Domino photograph from Nautical2k on Flickr
'The Bean Machine' at a Faux Rockefeller Center
The Bean Machine coffee shop here (above) doesn'treally register immediately as a specific location, but itssurroundings bear a striking resemblance to the plaza and shops at Rockefeller Center. From the architecture to the shop signage to the paving stones, it's almost a dead ringer, and it kinda has the feel of the Dean and Deluca shop there.
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Photograph from Branille on Flickr
'Superstar Cafe,' aka Spotlight Live?
I have no idea what place this one is modeled after, if any. Couldit be one of the hokey tourist traps in Times Square? Maybe. Though itdoes kinda look like the stage from American Idol. Would Iwant to get my coffee drink in a talent-show setting? No. I truly hopethere's no real-world equivalent to the Superstar Cafe.
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Update: Serious Eats reader Charm City Cupcakes points out that the Superstar Cafe may indeed be Spotlight Live, a mega-karaoke/performance/dining venue in Times Square. Not a direct comparison, in the photo below, but looking at the Spotlight Live website, I'd say it's a safe bet.
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BurgerShot
This one could be based on any number of third-tier burger chainsand probably doesn't map to a specific location or shop, either. (As CasperOne points outin the comments here, "there is not always a real-world counterpart tothe things that they put in the game.") It lies in one of the outerboroughs of Liberty City, at least according to the Liberty City map onthe game publisher's website. Even if you didn't have the map, youcould tell it's outer-borough because stand-alone fast-food joints inManhattan are as rare as steak tartare.
I think "BurgerShot" is a weird name for a burger joint.
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'69th Street Diner,' aka Air Line / Jackson Hole Diner?
And what about the photo this post opened with?
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Is there a real-world analog? Turning to the best source of old-school New York info, Forgotten NY, I'm guessing it's an amalgam of a few classic NYC diners, though it most closely resembles a mashup of the Air Line/Jackson Hole diner near LaGuardia Airport (the diner you've seen in Goodfellas) and the now defunct Bluebird Dinernear Utica Avenue in Flatbush, Brooklyn. I say this based on the factthat it has horizontal banding on its lower half and has a sort ofdouble roof:

Check out the NYC Classic Diners page on Forgotten NY for a better view of the Air Line/Jackson Hole.
Double-checking with DinerCity.com yields no specific real-world diner, either.

Johnson's,' aka Nathan's Famous
In the "Borough of Broker," in the "Hove Beach" neighborhood, stands "Johnson's," the "Home of the Wiener":

Warp to the real world, and you're in Brooklyn, at Coney Island, standing across the street from Nathan's, the scene of the annual July 4 hot dog eating contest you may have seen on ESPN:

'Cluckin' Bell,' aka Taco Bell
Taco Bell, of course, isn't native to New YorkCity, but it's funny to see a spoofed version of it in GTA IV. This oneis in the "Borough of Dukes".

Photograph from Soundman1024 on Flickr