Kossar's Bialys

Last updated

Kossar's Bagels & Bialys
Kossar's Bialys storefront.jpg
Kossar's Bialys
Kossar's Bialys
Restaurant information
Established1936
Owner(s)Evan Giniger and David Zablocki
Food type Bakery
Street address367 Grand Street (and Essex Street), Lower East Side, Manhattan
City New York City
State New York
Postal/ZIP Code10002
CountryUnited States
Coordinates 40°42′59″N73°59′20″W / 40.716446°N 73.988792°W / 40.716446; -73.988792
Website http://www.kossars.com

Kossar's Bialys (Kossar's Bialystoker Kuchen Bakery) located at 367 Grand Street (and Essex Street), on the Lower East Side in Manhattan, New York City, is the oldest bialy bakery in the United States. [1] [2]

Contents

Background

Kossar's bialys hot out of the oven KOSSAR BIALY-18.jpg
Kossar's bialys hot out of the oven

The bialy gets its name from the "Bialystoker Kuchen" of Białystok, in present-day Poland. Polish Jewish bakers who arrived in New York City in the late 19th century and early 20th century made an industry out of their recipe for the mainstay bread rolls baked in every household. [3]

History

Kossar's Bialys, originally known as Mirsky and Kossar's [4] when Isadore Mirsky and Morris Kossar founded it in 1936, is one of the few remnants of what was once its own industry in New York City with its own union association, the Bialy Bakers Association, Inc. [5]

Originally located on Clinton Street in Manhattan's Lower East Side, Kossar's Bialys moved to its current location at Grand and Essex Streets in the early 1960s after a union dispute and subsequent fire destroyed the building. [5] [6]

Juda Engelmayer, Debra Engelmayer, Daniel Cohen, and Malki Cohen purchased the bakery from Morris Kossar's son-in-law and daughter, Daniel and Gloria Kossar Scheinin in 1998. [7] [8]

Kossar's Bagels and Bialys Bagel Bialy.JPG
Kossar's Bagels and Bialys

In 2013, Evan Giniger and David Zablocki purchased the bakery from the Engelmayers and Cohens. After the sale, the new owners made a number of upgrades and changes to the store, including expanding the menu and making the decision to no longer operate as a kosher establishment.

Kossar's has a history of employing many female cashiers from the Philippines and employees from other countries as well. Many of these employees worked at the bakery for decades and still work at the bakery.

Kossar's Bialys was the starting point for former New York Times food critic Mimi Sheraton's research for her 2002 book, The Bialy Eaters: The Story of a Bread and a Lost World. [9]

Kossar's Bialys is on the Lower East Side and Lower Manhattan tour circuit. [7] [10]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Baker</span> Person who bakes and optionally sells bread products

A baker is a tradesperson who bakes and sometimes sells breads and other products made of flour by using an oven or other concentrated heat source. The place where a baker works is called a bakery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lower East Side</span> Neighborhood in New York City

The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets. Historically, it was understood to encompass a much larger area, from Broadway to the East River and from East 14th Street to Fulton and Franklin Streets.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rivington Street</span> Street in Manhattan, New York

Rivington Street is a street in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which runs across the Lower East Side neighborhood, between the Bowery and Pitt Street, with a break between Chrystie and Forsyth for Sara D. Roosevelt Park. Vehicular traffic runs west on this one-way street.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bialy (bread)</span> Yeasted bread roll

Bialy, originally from the city of Białystok in Poland, is a traditional bread roll in Polish Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine.

Shun Lee Palace is a Chinese restaurant located at 155 East 55th Street, between Lexington Avenue and Third Avenue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It claims to be the birthplace of orange beef. It opened in 1971. One year later, Shun Lee Palace's master chef T.T. Wang and partner Michael Tong opened Hunan Restaurant at 845 Second Avenue, the first Hunan restaurant in the country, paving the road for others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bialystoker Synagogue</span> Synagogue in Manhattan, New York

The Bialystoker Synagogue is an Orthodox Jewish synagogue located at 7–11 Bialystoker Place, also known as Willett Street, between Grand and Broome Streets in the Lower East Side neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, in New York City, New York, in the United States. The building was constructed in 1826 as the Willett Street Methodist Episcopal Church; the synagogue purchased the building in 1905.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grand Street (Manhattan)</span> Street in Manhattan, New York

Grand Street is a street in Lower Manhattan, New York City. It runs west/east parallel to and south of Delancey Street, from SoHo through Chinatown, Little Italy, the Bowery, and the Lower East Side. The street's western terminus is Varick Street, and on the east it ends at the service road for the FDR Drive.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Veniero's</span> Italian bakery

Veniero's Pasticceria & Caffé is an Italian bakery that was established in 1894, and is located at 342 East 11th Street, in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Streit's</span> American kosher food producer

Aron Streit, Inc. is a kosher food company founded in Manhattan, New York City, best known for its matzo. It is the only family-owned and operated matzo company in the United States, and distributes matzo in select international markets. Streit's and its major competitor, New Jersey based Manischewitz, together hold about 40 percent of the US matzo market.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">345 Park Avenue</span> Office skyscraper in Manhattan, New York

345 Park Avenue is a 634-foot (193 m) skyscraper in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. It occupies an entire city block bounded by Park Avenue, Lexington Avenue, 51st Street, and 52nd Street.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Veselka</span> Ukrainian restaurant in New York City

Veselka is a Ukrainian restaurant at 144 Second Avenue in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It was established in 1954 by Wolodymyr Darmochwal and his wife, Olha Darmochwal, post–World War II Ukrainian refugees. Veselka is one of the last of many Slavic restaurants that once proliferated the neighborhood. A cookbook, published in October 2009 by St. Martin’s Press, highlights more than 120 of the restaurant’s Eastern European recipes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Levain Bakery</span> Bakeries of the United States

Levain Bakery is a retail bakery that opened in 1995 and is located at 167 West 74th Street, on the Upper West Side neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. In June 2000 a second retail location was opened for seasonal business at 354 Montauk Highway, Wainscott, in the Hamptons area of eastern Long Island. A third store is located in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. In 2017, a fourth store was opened near the original location on the Upper West Side, and since then three more locations have opened on the Upper East Side and in NoHo and Williamsburg. In 2020, Levain opened their first store outside of New York, in Georgetown, Washington, D.C. In 2023, Levain opened a location in the Larchmont area of Los Angeles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St. Teresa Church (Manhattan)</span> Building in New York City, United States

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bagel toast</span> Toasted bagel with vegetables and cheese

Bagel toast is a sandwich commonly eaten in Israel. It is composed of a pressed, toasted bagel filled with vegetables and cheese and is grilled on a sandwich toaster or panini press. While the bagel is round with a hole in the center, it is unlike the typical American bagel in that it is made from a different dough with sesame seeds. Bagel toast is generally filled with tzfatit, feta, gvina levana or galil cheese, green olives, corn, tomatoes, onions, dressing, and pizza or chili sauce.

Miriam "Mimi" Sheraton was an American food critic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dirt Candy</span> Vegetarian restaurant in New York

Dirt Candy is a vegetarian restaurant in the Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Chef and owner Amanda Cohen opened the restaurant in a small East Village space in 2008, and moved to its present location in 2015. It has received critical attention for its creative dishes which often focus on a single vegetable.

Colors was a 70-seat restaurant in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ghivetch</span>

Ghivetch is a traditional Balkan autumn vegetable stew most closely associated with Romania, where it is a national dish, and Bulgaria. It is traditionally cooked in an earthenware pot called a güveç. It is often made only with vegetables, though some versions include meat, fish, or poultry. The Washington Post in 1985 called it "one of the world's great vegetable melanges". Mimi Sheraton called it "really the last word in vegetable stews".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bella's Italian Bakery</span> Bakery in Portland, Oregon, U.S.

Bella's Italian Bakery is a bakery in Portland, Oregon.

References

  1. "Food on the Lower East Side: Kossar's Bialys". Lower East Side Tenement National Historic Site website. Archived from the original on December 30, 2006. Retrieved December 28, 2006.
  2. Colleen McKinney. "Profile: Kossar's Bialys". New York Magazine . Archived from the original on July 16, 2006. Retrieved December 28, 2006.
  3. Paul Solman (WGBH-TV Boston) (April 5, 2001). "Baking History". The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer . Archived from the original on January 22, 2014. Retrieved September 2, 2017.
  4. Allegra Jordan Young (Winter 2006). "Roy Mersky and the Future of Libraries" (PDF). UT Law, the magazine of the University of Texas School of Law (Cover story, p. 26).[ permanent dead link ]
  5. 1 2 "Suspicious Blast Damages Bakery". The New York Times Business Financial section, Page 52 (abstract). February 20, 1958. The Local had been striking since Feb. 1 against Kossar's and six other bakeries, all members of an owner's alliance called the Bialy Baker's Association Inc.
  6. Barry Popik. "Bialy". barrypopik.com (includes additional text from the New York Times article).
  7. 1 2 Claiborne Smith (November 10, 2003). "Guided by Cell Phone: An 800 number brings Lower East Side history to life". Newsday .
  8. Nadine Brozan (February 3, 2002). "For Low-Cost Co-op, a Pricing Quandary". The New York Times. Archived from the original on November 1, 2006. Juda Engelmayer and his wife, Debra, who jointly own Kossar's Bialys with their brother-in-law and sister, Daniel and Malki Cohen.[Photo caption]
  9. Mimi Sheraton (2000). The Bialy Eaters: The Story of a Bread and a Lost World . Broadway. ISBN   978-0-7679-0502-2.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  10. Anne McDonough (December 21, 2005). "Hear Here!". The Washington Post p. C02.

40°42′58.91″N73°59′19.68″W / 40.7163639°N 73.9888000°W / 40.7163639; -73.9888000