Borough Park, NY – A Generation Of The Oldest Kosher Dairy Luncheonette Keeps Dream Alive

Borough Park, NY – Change the decor? Never.

Upgrade the outdoor signage? Don’t even think about it!

Everything is pretty much as it’s always been at the Dairy Luncheonette in Borough Park. The kosher eatery did once get a facelift, but that was 25 years ago.

“That’s part of the charm,” said Roz Liberman, who runs the place with her husband, Shloimie.

The corner breakfast and lunch spot dates to 1968, when Shloimie’s late parents, Tillie and Jacob Liberman, opened it.

Since then, generations have enjoyed breakfast or lunch at four small wooden tables, which together seat 12, or at a long counter, which has stools for 10.

Counter customers can watch as their eggs are fried in individual pans, never on a grill. That’s the way Shloimie’s mom did things and that’s the way they’re done now.

Labor and love

Roz Liberman started working in the luncheonette 18 years ago when the second of the Libermans’ daughters went to school. She runs the cash register on an honor system. Customers tell her what they had and she rings up the bill. What’s it like sharing a work space with her husband all day?

“It’s not always easy,” she said. “He stays down at one end of the counter and minds his business. I stay down here and mind mine. At least he knows where I am all day.”

“We’ve never used a grill here,” said Shloimie Liberman, 59. “When you make something on a grill, it gets the taste of whatever was cooked on the grill before. We use frying pans to make the eggs. You taste the eggs.” Recipes are simple, and just like mama made them.

“She never measured anything,” Shloimie said. “You put a little of this, a little of that. If it needs more salt, you put more salt. She did all the cooking, the eggs, the salads. When she got older, I took over.”

His work day starts when he sets up at 5 a.m. and ends with cleaning from 5 to 6 p.m. “I tell all my workers, ‘We do this every night, we don’t let it build up so you have to work for hours scrubbing and cleaning. … When a lot of the inspectors come, they don’t believe this equipment is 25 years old.”

A homey feeling

Siporah Bikel lives and works in the neighborhood, and knew Shloimie’s parents when they ran the store.

“A real old-time European couple, very hard-working,” said Bikel, who manages a jewelry store.

Bikel says it’s fine by her the luncheonette hasn’t changed much over the years.

“It gives you that old, homey feeling,” she said. “Everybody feels at home here.”

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Angelo Saavedra, 33, is the egg man. He had no previous experience as a short-order cook when he started behind the counter at the luncheonette eight years ago. In Mexico, he was a student and a farm worker.

“Everything I learned, Shloimie taught me,” he said.

Shloimie explained, “I looked at him and said, ‘Listen, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist. All you have to do is pay attention and see what basically has to be done. It’s not that hard.’ ”

Customers rave about Saavedra’s cooking, and he says he’s learned the secret of the luncheonette’s success:

“It’s your heart,” he said. “You have to be friendly, like what you do and put your heart into each thing you make.”

Loyal customers

Josh Rubinstein, 31, started going to the luncheonette during his teens, when he was attending school in the area.

The singer and real-estate developer now lives in Marine Park, but he still stops in for breakfast every morning — a scrambled egg sandwich with salt, pepper and onion.

“They make the best breakfast. They don’t carry 35 or 40 items; they carry 10 to 12. You know everything’s fresh because they make it right in front of you, and most of all, it tastes good.”

Rubinstein first came to the luncheonette for coffee. “But once I sampled their eggs,” he said, “I forever stayed part of the egg clan.”