In 1934, a Ukrainian immigrant started selling fish from a rented counter in a dairy store on West 80th Street, never imagining that his shelves would grow to occupy a full block along Broadway, that 40,000 customers would walk through its doors each week or that it would sell 2,000 pounds of lox every day.
But Louis Zabar not only figured out how to “deghettoize” Jewish food but how to predict the culinary trends that would have customers lining up to buy exotic peppercorns no one has yet heard of and 800 varieties of cheese, as well as eight iterations of lox.
Before she passed away in February 2022, Louis’s granddaughter, Lori Zabar, wrote a riveting account of his journey, the passing of the torch to her father, uncle and the partner who raised competitive pricing to an art form: Zabar’s: A Family Story, with Recipes.
Join us to hear members of the Zabar family, Saul Zabar and Lori’s father Stanley Zabar, her nephew Willie Zabar, her brother and Zabar's Executive Director David Zabar, Zabar’s store manager Scott Goldshine and Julia Moskin of The New York Times about the family’s iconic gourmet paradise and to share their and Lori’s stories of eccentric customers, celebrity fans and the devotion to food that made an immigrant’s small shop into an iconic New York institution.
Moderated by Gabriella Gershenson, James Beard Award–nominated food journalist and an editor of The 100 Most Jewish Foods and On the Hummus Route.