New York icon Pastrami Queen opening in Brooklyn

A classic New York delicatessen is moving to Brooklyn. Pastrami Queen, which has served pastrami sandwiches and other Jewish staples for nearly 70 years, will open in Dumbo’s Time Out Market, a waterfront food hall with an impressive number of highly-rated local restaurants. Pastrami Queen will open at 55 Water Street on Thursday, February 1, according to Time Out New York.

The deli has roots in the borough, opening in 1956 as Pastrami King in Williamsburg. A few years later, the business relocated to Kew Gardens in Queens. In 1998, the business changed its name to Pastrami Queen, in honor of then-manager Gary Zinger’s mother-in-law, and moved to the Upper East Side.

The restaurant has long been a favorite of New Yorkers, like Anthony Bourdain, who famously called its pastrami sandwich the “real deal.” He told Variety in 2017:

“The first thing I get when I’m back in New York is a pastrami sandwich. Pastrami Queen (1125 Lexington Ave.) is a really good pastrami sandwich — if not the best, among the very best. Just a good, nice mix of fat and lean. It’s the real deal, served warm on fresh, soft rye bread with the right kind of mustard. Good pickles. And they deliver — very happy with that. I get a cream soda. It’s a quintessential New York meal for me.”

Pastrami Queen opened a second location on the Upper West Side in 2020, followed by a move into Moynihan Train Hall. All locations but the new Brooklyn restaurant are kosher.

Alan Phillips, who co-owns the deli with his son Jonah, told Time Out in an interview that Brooklyn holds a lot of memories for his family.

“This is where he would walk with his grandfather underneath the Brooklyn Bridge. Time Out was like, not our traditional venue, you know, being in that kind of concept. But I walked in, he walked in, we went in a number of times and we said, ‘you know what, this is the perfect place to put our toe in the water.'”

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