Ben’s Best, the Kosher deli that has been located in Rego Park for nearly 75 years, is closing.
The owner of the 96-40 Queens Blvd. establishment made the announcement on the restaurant’s website yesterday.
“Regretfully, after seventy-three wonderful years, Ben’s Best will be closing its doors on Saturday June 30,” the deli announced. “We are very grateful to everyone who has supported us and we hope to see you one last time.”
The deli is owned by Jay Parker, whose father Benjamin opened the famed deli in 1945. The deli is known for its old-fashioned pastrami, matzo ball soup and fresh rye bread.
The deli has struggled in recent times, with Parker attributing much of the decline to the Department of Transportation’s installation of protected bicycle lanes on Queens Boulevard, which required the reduction of parking spaces.
23 comments:
Dumblasio wants to force out long term residents and replace them with hipsters
I do not believe this is true -- they are retiring
Those dickheads at trans-alt certainly must be proud of themselves.
It's clear this bike lobby group is an agent of the city affecting the civic services of road infrastructure and design. These idiots think parked vehicles are silent killers of the environment.
What's really abominable is that this deli is pretty renowned, maybe as famous as Katz in Manhattan, and you think that with the so-called food revolution that the city planners are shaping as a way to draw tourists and transients you think Ben's might get spared of the vanishing tag that has befallen hundreds of other local long time businesses.
One day, Queens Blvd. east of Woodhaven Blvd. is going to look like the ending of the film "the last picture show" and the bike lanes will still be deserted.
More like the stupidity of the owner. Lots of people go shopping in the area on weekends and yet no one seems to eat there but they go eat at all the other restaurants in the area that opened up. People go sit in starbucks for hours buying $5 coffee but not at Ben's.
Maybe he should have had something other than $20 sandwiches?
And it looks horrible and has never been fixed up.
When deBlas dies and goes to hell I hope his job will be to park the cars in an overcrowded bicycle friendly city. What a shame, Ben's was the last hold out in this once pastrami rich neighborhood. We will soon be damned to a life of eating crappy Subway sandwiches. Thanks a lot Bill!
The bike lanes are the stupidest thing ever! It’s not safe, takes too much space, creates more traffic, cars Doible and trip park because of it, no parking ever, hurts businesses as if they’re already not being affected by dying retail.
This is a disgusting desecration of We, the People's civil liberties. Where are the cradle-to-grave politicians like Karen Koslowitz and her pal, Melinda Katz? Why is Queens Borough Hall and the DOT punishing hardworking, Mom & Pop businesses, the likes of which have rapidly disappeared over the last 30 years? WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE?
I've known Jay Parker, my pal, my mensch, since the 1970s, when my parents would faithfully take me and the entire family for Sunday night dinner at the hottest ticket in town. Are we going to let an outrageously vapid and insipid bike lane slam the brakes on all NECESSARY COMMERCE? And, now that the vacuous (and wasteful) DOT is forcing Rego Park's ONLY Jewish deli to disappear into the ether (instead of that fucking bike lane) WHAT'S NEXT? Where is the rage and allegiance from the Jewish community, synagogues and everyone who patronizes Ben's Best?
If this iconic restaurant closes, then I predict openly practiced anarchy――the same kind that they willfully practice at Monarch Melinda's Borough Hall. By the way, these were the same Gestapo tactics that forced 'Triumph of Civic Virtue' to be robbed from Kew Gardens Plaza in the middle of the night, on Saturday, December 15, 2012, under the cover of darkness, and the reason why no one in Queens County has any rights―but, PLENTY of the same decades of 'taxation WITHOUT representation'――and, the public be eternally duped, bilked, robbed, scammed, SCARRED FOR LIFE, and damned!
George Orwell said it best (and with prescience!): ❝Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.❞ ――George Orwell, 1984
Power to the People―and, NEVER Power to the Party: The two-party-machine-failed duopoly is FINALLY DOA!
It's the Ruling Class. Always the ruling class. The real government. Not the puppet charade of a government nor their complicit corporations, monopolies, conglomerates.
We are governed by a swarm of 'Monetary Locusts,' fellow citizenry, whose voracious appetites for 'OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY' is about to impoverish the entire nation and world-at-large (again), and the public be damned (again and STILL)!
The REVOLUTION will not be televised!
One thing I never understood about bike lanes is why they have to be 24x7. If many bus lanes open up to other traffic and parking in non-rush hours, why can't the bike lanes? If these bike lanes are meant for "commuting" and not for joyriding, then there is no reason that they can't open up for mid-day and nighttime parking.
That alone could have saved Ben's Best--allowing lunchtime patrons to park outside of the rush hour.
It's not a retirement as per the owner.
Just as planned.
A lot of delis have closed in recent years,Deli Masters shut down a few years ago and is now a Halal restaurant, I think the only old business that is still surviving on that strip in Fresh Meadows is the Oasis Bagel and Brothers Pizza. Brothers Pizza will be around for a long time, mostly because even the newcomers to that area love the pizza.
I think Sal and Kris will be around, so will Sorrisos, all because those sandwiches are so good even the hipsters in Astoria love them.
Not surprised, Rego Park has turned to crap over the past several years, most white middle class residents have left, even if this guy is blaming the lack of parking the demographics do not support delis. Even many pizza shops all around the city have shut their doors, and pizza tends to be universally popular food. Delis were more a niche, they were very common 30 years ago, but the demographics of this city does not support it anymore.
I used to live in Rego Park in the early 80s, was a nice middle working class area, most of those people left for the suburbs or left New York, its become more of a third world type ghetto in recent years. Also got the most dangerous street in New York. That area went downward in the 1990s and has not been a place I would bother going to in years.
The other nail in the coffin for this area are the hipsters and the new developments, they will house large numbers of hipsters who cannot afford Brooklyn or Astoria. So its only going to get worse.
I've always liked Forest Hills in the Continental Ave area. We also have a location and I visit every two weeks.
The are has changed dramatically in the 24 years we've been there.
The older Jews have moved out or died and been replaced with Russians -some Jewish -some not.
One complaint I've repeatedly heard from longtime residents is the insularity of the recent foreign arrivals. They have been setting up their own shops and only patronize them.
The section along QBL in Rego-FH has a number of rather shady night clubs with gangster looking types. This has fed older resident's suspicion as where 'all that money is coming from".
Bottom line here; the neighborhood is changing. A lot of old-line business will be gone soon...probably including us in 3-1/2 years.
Rob in Manhattan
Q: Why is Queens Borough Hall and the DOT punishing hardworking, Mom & Pop businesses
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A: Because they are mostly private owned by white people who don't want to share, including not employing enough people for the space they take up.
Everything private, including cars, homes, healthcare is under the gun to be taken and conveyed to some kind of public use interest one way or another.
The dam city has its hands in everything including private construction. From what I understand to get a "nod" to build a hotel or multi residential over 5 or so units you must agree to take 20% section 8 (many are in fact homeless with mental issues, penal system cases etc.) These 20 percent'rs who will be assigned by depart human services. (another words for every six apartments 1 apartment must be a sec 8 case, ex-con or nutcase and you can NOT discriminate, dont get to pick your city issued tenant even if your a residing owner in the building) When you agree to take a Sec 8 check you agree too all this shit that removes most your rights as a landlord residing on the premises.
Now the city is a joint tenant in ownership and your building is f_cked for life
Its called socialism at municipal gunpoint
Mayor Billy boy? Love to be 1 of your friends that thought these lane closures were good for the city and not lining their pockets. You are the worst
the problem isn't so much the bike lanes. it's this whole section of Queens Blvd that borders the pricey, yuppy-ish neighborhood of Forest hills. They think they are the upper east side of Queens. Everything is overpriced and the rents are ridiculously high.
The car haters, most of whom live in Manhattan and downtown Brooklyn, want to punish car drivers,force them out of their cars. Those empty dedicated bike lanes on Queens Boulevard are outrageously unnecessary. Why couldn't the DoT have put the bike lanes on parallel, less busy local streets? Thousands of parking spaces have been lost, and the quality of life of tens of thousands of local residents have been made worse. I can't wait to move out of New York City. I'm counting the days.
The reason why Bens is closing is because of the health violations. Look it up with the department of health. 51 point violation during last months inspection. This place has been invested with rats for years, but people want to blame the bike lanes.
This is what these bike lanes and the type of residents the city and REBNY wants to attract and to supplant real New Yorkers with. And the NYPD is just fine with it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unwcKf_LKUo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAU8ZYXKlRs&t=59s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6owNyhj12A
Remember, to the Mayor, all these Queens businesses closing down as the result of bike lanes is not a bug, it's a feature.
Bens in Rego Park has the best Pastrami sandwich in New York hands down, friends of mine who live in Manhattan when they mention Pastrami mention Ben's and not Katz's which is a tourist trap/hipster rip off site. If you want a real Pastrami sandwich this is THE place to get it, the only other place comparable is Mill Basin Deli, but that is all the way in Brooklyn and who knows when that one will be pushed out by the invading hipsters and yuppies who cannot afford Manhattan.
Wow this really sucks, I guess Queens still has at least has Tony's Deli in Beechurst and Leo's in Corona.
Jake is right and thanks for confirming my theory about Bens' being as popular as Katz (a bullshit dive whose management sold out to REBNY to keep their space). The last time I was at Bens was over 10 years ago and I still have that monster delectable pastrami sandwich on my mind (and I went there with my bike before the dumbass bike lanes). The city and that city agent scumbag douche Paul Steely White forced this deli out of business. Transalt are useful idiots for the gentrification industrial complex.
, Parker said. “I don’t depend on the local people.” http://jewishweek.timesofisrael.com/theyre-shedding-tears-for-bens-best/
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