Katz's Delicatessen
New York, NY · katzsdelicatessen.com
A cavernous, always-buzzing Lower East Side deli where countermen hand-carve towering pastrami and corned beef to order. You grab a ticket at the door, watch your sandwich built behind the counter, and eat shoulder-to-shoulder at long communal tables — about as quintessentially New York as a sandwich gets.
History
Katz's Delicatessen opened in 1888 on Ludlow Street, founded by the Iceland brothers and later joined by Willy Katz, whose family name the deli still carries. In 1917, as subway construction tore up the Lower East Side, it moved to its current corner of Houston and Ludlow, where it has stayed ever since. During World War II, with three of the family's sons serving overseas, Katz's coined the slogan “Send a Salami to Your Boy in the Army” — a line that still hangs over the counter today. For more than a century the method hasn't changed: whole briskets are cured for weeks, smoked, steamed, and hand-carved to order. The deli became a pop-culture landmark in 1989, when When Harry Met Sally filmed its most famous scene at one of its tables — a sign marks the spot to this day. Through a changing neighborhood and a century of New York, it remains one of the last of the great Jewish delis, still slinging pastrami and corned beef on rye to a line out the door.
