Sadly, the word deli has lost its meaning. Today, deli and bodegas are synonymous. You can get sandwiches, sure, but also Advil, detergent, multiple varieties of soy milk, and an e-cig. Once upon time, a deli, or delicatessen, was a restaurant with large booths, huge menus, celebrity photos on the walls, and the smell of pickle brine in the air. In a city that was once littered with real Jewish delis, too many have been lost to time and we are now down to fewer than 20. Lift your can of Dr. Brown's to the remaining few and look at our picks for the best of a dying breed.
The Endangered Traditional Deli in Manhattan
People that don't live in or around NYC think I'm nuts when I say it's hard to find a decent deli to sit down and have a pastrami sandwich with a few pickles in Manhattan. Well at least one person at The Gothamist shares my feeling that the deli is dying cuisine. The Gothamist article notes that a deli lost its meaning, and there aren't event 20 left in the city: