SAVING THE BEST FOR LAST
Ben's Best in Rego Park may be one of the last remaining Kosher delis in America. Where else would we turn to find out how to make the perfect latke?
Written and photographed by Jesse Hirsch
REGO PARK - Manager Marty Stein, 25-year veteran of Ben's Best Kosher Deli in Rego Park, says he's not a people person, yet he captivates customers with charm and easy wit. He calls himself the catering manager, yet he seems to work every position in the shop. He sings the praises of kosher living, yet he doesn't stay kosher himself. A man of contradictions, Stein values consistency above all else when it comes to restaurants. "What you eat today has to taste the same next week and the week after that or you won't come back. People don't like change."
Ben's Best (not to be confused with New York chain Ben's Delis) has stayed largely the same since 1945, when it was opened by current owner Jay Parker's father Ben. Brightly lit, with a long deli counter in front and a modest, no-frills seating area in the rear, you don't have to be from New York to recognize it as the quintessential old-school kosher deli. Wood paneling. Fluorescent lighting. Bright gleaming tins of chopped liver, luncheon meats and coleslaw. Wait staff swirling around in black vests and slacks, chatty on the fly. Line cooks in white, shouting orders and chopping with grace. It's almost cinematic.
While the recipes and décor have remained comfortingly unchanged for decades, and Stein may be unclear on the difference between e-mail and websites, Ben's Best isn't stuck in 1945.
For every Jewish bubbe stopping in for a nosh and a chat, there is a young Asian couple or a Middle-Eastern family or some other sign of the neighborhood's ever-shifting demographics. Stein proudly points out a group of Muslim customers and a Muslim cook working the line (there are many similarities between the rules of kosher and Halal). When Ben's Best first opened, Stein says the neighborhood was 80 to 90 percent Jewish. Visit the area now and you are less likely to hear Yiddish than Chinese, Russian or Arabic; like much of Queens, Rego Park is a constant flux of revolving immigrant populations.
The landscape of the ‘hood has changed too. In an area where most shops were once small and family-owned, Ben's Best is now an anomaly, tucked in among the neon chain stores and high-rise apartment buildings of Queens Boulevard. From the outside the deli looks fragile, like it could be swallowed up at any time by the insistent modernity surrounding it.
But Jay Parker knows it's 2009. A former stockbroker, his regular television appearances and burgeoning web presence indicate this isn't his father's Ben's Best. And Parker's customers don't just live in Rego Park. Ben's Best now does a brisk nationwide catering business, shipping food to Seattle, Kansas City and Mobile, Alabama, to name a few. And a visit to the deli appears to be de rigueur for many visiting dignitaries. A quick scan of the news clippings and photos across from the deli counter shows they've served Hillary Clinton, Joe Lieberman, Martha Stewart and two popes. Ben's Best even sent a huge plate of chopped liver in the shape of the Empire State Building to then-Governor George W. Bush in Texas (he won a bet with former Governor Pataki).
For his part, Stein isn't too dazzled by the starpower. After working at Ben's Best for 25 years, he knows it's regular people, stopping by for a corned beef sandwich or a hot dog or a knish, that make up the backbone of Ben's Best.
"Let me give you a little advice," he says. "If you're trying to choose a restaurant, don't base your decision on the chandeliers or the fancy wallpaper; choose a place for the people you see eating inside. That's how you pick a winner."
Click here for Ben's Latkes recipe.
Watch the video here.
Ben's Best Kosher Deli, 96-40 Queens Blvd., Rego Park, 718-897-1700
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