Loyal Patrons Line Up for Final Carnegie Deli Meal
The iconic Carnegie Delicatessen in Manhattan's theater district closes this weekend after nearly 80 years. Loyal customers are coming to the delicatessen in droves to get a final taste before it closes on Dec. 31.
The line reached all the way down the block and showed no sign of getting shorter even as people were seated. A restaurant manager tried to keep people out of the doorways of neighboring stores. He said anyone interested in takeout could step out of line and go into the restaurant. There weren't many takers. Frank Gray certainly was not one of them "A fella came out and shook out a few for takeout. But I said, 'No, I'm sitting,' " he said.
Gray has been coming to Carnegie Deli for nearly 30 years because of his love of pastrami.
"I went to Katz's [Delicatessen] once and I get the schmaltz thing, but the pastrami's just not as good," he said. "Sorry, all you folks out there who are lifelong Katz's folks. Not I!"
Gray made a special trip from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to pay homage to the New York staple and to eat his usual order one last time.
One patron made an even longer journey, hopping a plane from Indiana for a final soft salami sandwich on rye.
"I bought a plane ticket yesterday two hours before a plane took off because... I couldn't let it close without getting one last giant, face-sized sandwich," she said.
The patron, who's 24 now, said her family would eat at Carnegie whenever they visited New York since she was 8. She said she took the news of the closing hard.
"Oh, I cried. I cried and I called my parents... and my sister," she said.
The restaurant had been struggling lately. It closed for 10 months after workers reported a gas leak. In 2014, a court ordered the restaurant to pay its employees more than $2 million in back wages. But loyal customer, such as Dr. Kurt Klarn kept coming back. When asked about the walls displaying picture of celebrities who have eaten there in the past, Klarn said at least one person is missing.
"I've been to this place so many times; my picture should be on the wall," he said.
Klarn lives upstate in Utica, but he is another longtime customer who wanted to visit the deli before it closed. He remembered what first inspired him to visit Carnegie nearly 30 years ago.
"I was down here to watch the ball drop on New Year's and they had a news segment on television at the time. It was about the original owner Leo Steiner... And they showed some video clips of the waiters and the waitresses walking around the delicatessen with these sandwiches that just made my eyes fall out of their sockets," Klarn said. "And I said, 'Next time I come down here to New York, I'm going to check out the delicatessen.' And a few months later in the spring I did and I've been here ever since."
Over the years, Klarn shared his love of the deli with other people he knew in Utica.
"I have a lot of my patients at my dental practice that I have brought sandwiches back for, and I've got them hooked on this place too," he said.
Although known for its pastrami, one of the restaurant's biggest claims to fame is being a favorite of Woody Allen, who featured it in his movie "Broadway Danny Rose."
