Reuben's Restaurant and Delicatessen was a restaurant and

Jewish deli A Jewish deli, also known as a Jewish delicatessen, is a delicatessen establishment that serves various traditional dishes in Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine, and are typically known for their sandwiches such as pastrami on rye, as well as their soups ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

founded by Arnold Reuben.

History

Arnold Reuben was a Jewish-German immigrant who founded Reuben's Restaurant in 1908 at 802

Park Avenue Park Avenue is a wide New York City boulevard which carries north and southbound traffic in the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. For most of the road's length in Manhattan, it runs parallel to Madison Avenue to the west and Lexington Av ...

. In 1916 the restaurant moved to

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

on 73rd Street before moving again two years later to 622 Madison Avenue. Thirty years after it first opened its doors, Reuben's Restaurant and Delicatessen finally had a formal opening at 6 East 58th Street with the mayor at the time,

Fiorello La Guardia Fiorello Henry LaGuardia (; born Fiorello Enrico LaGuardia, ; December 11, 1882September 20, 1947) was an American attorney and politician who represented New York in the House of Representatives and served as the 99th Mayor of New York City fro ...

, in attendance. Reuben's remained in that location until the restaurant was sold in the mid-1960s, when it moved to 38th Street and Madison Avenue. It operated at 244 Madison Avenue until 2001 when the restaurant was forced to close due to health code infractions. Reuben's Restaurant and Delicatessen played a small part in the 1919

Black Sox scandal The Black Sox Scandal was a Major League Baseball game-fixing scandal in which eight members of the Chicago White Sox were accused of throwing the 1919 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for money from a gambling syndicate l ...

when the

Chicago White Sox The Chicago White Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The White Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. The team is owned by Jerry Reinsdorf, and ...

conspired to "throw" the

World Series The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, contested since 1903 between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winner of the World ...

in the most widely condemned instance of illegal high stakes gambling in sports history. Abe "The Little Champ" Attell's initial attempt to sell the idea to

Arnold Rothstein Arnold Rothstein (January 17, 1882 – November 4, 1928), nicknamed "The Brain", was an American racketeer, crime boss, businessman, and gambler in New York City. Rothstein was widely reputed to have organized corruption in professional athletic ...

, the most powerful sports gambler at the time, took place in a private room inside Reuben's. Reuben would name sandwiches after celebrities, including Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra, a gimmick used by many restaurants at the time. In 1938, Reuben was interviewed about his restaurant by the Federal Writers' Project. Arnold Reuben's son, Arnold Reuben Jr., worked in the restaurant with his father until the mid-1960s when Reuben sold the restaurant to Harry L. Gilman.

Marian Burros Marian Burros (born in Waterbury, Connecticut) is a cookbook author, and food columnist for ''The New York Times'', a position she has held since 1983. Previously, Burros was ''The Washington Posts food editor and a consumer reporter for an NBC ...

wrote about the restaurant's appearance on January 11, 1986, in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

''. She said: "Italian marble, gold-leaf ceiling, lots of walnut paneling and dark red leather seats — to a small-town girl, it was the quintessential New York restaurant."

References

External links

The Reuben Sandwich
{{Midtown South, Manhattan 1908 establishments in New York City 2001 disestablishments in New York (state) Defunct restaurants in New York City German-Jewish culture in New York City Jewish delicatessens in the United States Jews and Judaism in Manhattan Restaurants established in 1908 Restaurants disestablished in 2001 Defunct Jewish delicatessens

History

See also

References

Further reading

External links