“I’m looking for that old New York flavor that you don’t see anymore,” an anonymous narrator says in a YouTube clip entitled “Eisenberg’s Sandwich Shop - Open 1929 and still going strong.” In shaky footage, filmed in 1991 at the Jewish-style lunch counter near the Flatiron Building, a couple of good-natured soda jerks indulge questions about their work between answering calls on a rotary phone and shovelling ice into plastic cups, dutifully maintaining a disappearing way of life.
Thirty years later, the rotary phone needs a new ringer and the place is under new management, and yet: the prognosis for that old New York flavor is good. If Eisenberg’s never achieved the international acclaim of, say, Katz’s or the Carnegie Deli, it earned a cult following with its tuna melts and matzo-ball soup, and, more important, by never seeming to change a smidge. When, in 2021, the building’s landlord sought a new tenant to carry the torch (the previous one reportedly defaulted on the rent), dozens applied. From among them, the finest possible victors emerged: Eric Finkelstein and Matt Ross, the sandwich experts and playful nostalgists behind Court Street Grocers and the HiHi Room.
This story is from the November 21, 2022 edition of The New Yorker.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the November 21, 2022 edition of The New Yorker.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
YULE RULES
“Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point.”
COLLISION COURSE
In Devika Rege’ first novel, India enters a troubling new era.
NEW CHAPTER
Is the twentieth-century novel a genre unto itself?
STUCK ON YOU
Pain and pleasure at a tattoo convention.
HEAVY SNOW HAN KANG
Kyungha-ya. That was the entirety of Inseon’s message: my name.
REPRISE
Reckoning with Donald Trump's return to power.
WHAT'S YOUR PARENTING-FAILURE STYLE?
Whether you’re horrifying your teen with nauseating sex-ed analogies or watching TikToks while your toddler eats a bagel from the subway floor, face it: you’re flailing in the vast chasm of your child’s relentless needs.
COLOR INSTINCT
Jadé Fadojutimi, a British painter, sees the world through a prism.
THE FAMILY PLAN
The pro-life movement’ new playbook.
President for Sale - A survey of today's political ads.
On a mid-October Sunday not long ago sun high, wind cool-I was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for a book festival, and I took a stroll. There were few people on the streets-like the population of a lot of capital cities, Harrisburg's swells on weekdays with lawyers and lobbyists and legislative staffers, and dwindles on the weekends. But, on the façades of small businesses and in the doorways of private homes, I could see evidence of political activity. Across from the sparkling Susquehanna River, there was a row of Democratic lawn signs: Malcolm Kenyatta for auditor general, Bob Casey for U.S. Senate, and, most important, in white letters atop a periwinkle not unlike that of the sky, Kamala Harris for President.
