Zabar's

Zabar's on Broadway and 80th Street is a New York gourmet food store institution. It has an eye-popping and dizzing selection of every kind of food imaginable - meats, olives, breads, smoked fish, huge section of Kosher food, prepared food, and packaged goods from literally all corners of the globe. The store's second level sells just as dizzing amount of housewares and cookware. Zabar's was opened in 1934 by Louis Zabar who immigrated to New York from Ukraine. Impressively, it's still family owned and operated by Zabar's three sons.


The first thing you smell went you walk into this store is CHEESE, and lots of it. This photo only shows a small section of the cheese selection.


Then the aroma of their fresh coffee beans captivates you. The smell of coffee here is truly intoxicating. The coffee bean options are unbelievable. Zabar's supposedly sell over 8,000 pounds of coffee a week. You can't buy a cup of coffee in the store but if you go to the store's attached cafe, you can buy a cup of coffee for $1 and a Zabar mug just for $1 as well. Just make sure to specifically tell them you don't want milk in your coffee.


We're carnivores so this part of the store is trouble for us.


If we hadn't eaten the most delicious Rugelach from Mr. Broadway's just days before coming here, we would have thought this was a lot more special, but Mr. Broadway's had the upper hand. We also tried their world famous Knish, which we thought was just so-so and a bit dry. And we're digressing here a bit but when was the last time you had a Knish theater party in your kitchen?


Zabar's is almost a city block long and despite its large size, the store still feels cramped because of the insane amount of customers that visit this store (around 35,000 customers visit each week). Too bad this store isn't closer to our neighborhood, and we most certainly can't afford to move to the expensive neighborhood where Zabar's is located.

You don't need to kibitz here when you've got the kind of sights and scents that Zabar's has.