Famed Carnegie Deli Only Weeks Away from Return

The legendary Carnegie Deli , which shut down a decade ago, will be reopening within weeks a few door down from its original location, according to social media posts placed on their Facebook and Instagram feeds.

Revenge is a dish best served hot with a knish on the side.

The original Carnegie location at 854 Seventh Avenue, closed on New Years Eve of 2016. The new location, 834 Seventh, had been occupied by the Roxy Deli, which closed two years ago. It was the former location of the competing Stage Deli, in business from 1937 to 2012. The Stage and the Carnegie were bitter rivals; the former dissing the Carnegie Deli by stating their pastrami was cured with piped-in New Jersey water, the Carnegie countering that the Stage bought meat from vendors, not prepared in-house, rendering any idea of uniqueness moot. Now, Carnegie is the third Jewish deli to stand in that space, outlasting its competitors.

The deli was best known for huge meat sandwiches of corned beef or pastrami, knishes, chopped liver, and walls festooned with countless celebrities dining photos; some of them might have been noshing there when you were also doing so. Like so many New York business, it has had a vibrant history to accompany the consumption of deli staples by hungry patrons,

Straus News Manhattan reached out to Linda Gomez, a former waitress there during the late 70’s, who gave us some unique historical tidbits.

During her time there, the waitstaff was largely Jewish, she noted, while the kitchen was largely Hispanic.

The United States Immigration and Naturalization Service, precursor to today’s ICE, would raid businesses to search for illegal aliens. Gomez remembers one Ecuadorian kitchen worker who was only 16 year old at the time of one raid. As agents barged in through the front door, he jumped into a pickle barrel where he was provided with a straw to enable him to breathe, and evade detection by the immigration authorities. After the INS agents left, he climbed out, a little briny but otherwise unscathed.

Gomez recalled, “And of course, we served every pickle in that barrel.”

The deli was best known for huge meat sandwiches, knishes, chopped liver, and walls festooned with countless celebrities dining photos; some of them might have been noshing there when you were also doing so. She mentioned the deli’s noted sandwich sizes. In her view, it didn’t matter how much, how big they were as much as how much pastrami, brisket, tongue and corned beef they could sell; over the counter sales of their meats at the counter augmented the revenue from table service.

It was important, she said, to learn a shtick, a patter, to amuse the customers and to ensure better tips. Protecting Woody Allen from nearby patrons, working hard, taking gratuities home in coins, it was rewarding work for new to NYC Gomez, a California transplant. “It was grad school for me,” she said. From the Carnegie, she became a journalist and academic before retiring.

The business plan worked for everyone there for a long time. And then it didn’t. Various misfortunes occurred towards the end of the deli’s 2016 demise, lurid, judicial and financial. The story didn’t end there.

And now?

Third-generation deli maven owner Sarri Harper Weissman will be in charge; she is the granddaughter of the late Milton Parker, who bought the restaurant with two partners from others in 1976; overseeing will be her mother, Marian Harper.

For the last ten years since the restaurant closure, the Carnegie Deli brand has maintained a presence at Madison Square Garden and other venues through pop-ups, with their products available in supermarkets.

Ellen Fried, a deli enthusiast and social media blogger whose Facebook site “Ellen Loves Pastrami” has 3,000 followers told us she would love to see Carnegie produce pastrami at their own commissary as had been done before the deli closed 10 years ago. Having met both mother and daughter in the past, Pastrami Queen Fried indicated that it’s better for the younger generation to take the helm, and let Marian Harper enjoy herself, out of the Northeast’s winter season.

Currently, there is paper around the glass windows that front the space, obscuring the interior, said to have seating for over 100 thirsty, hungry deli aficionados at a time. Soon, the sound of slicing machines, and clattering plates and silverware, will find waitstaff delivering Carnegie favorites to both former and new patrons. They will share again a space with the magical aroma of a Jewish Delicatessen, as it had for almost 80 years prior.