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rego park is named bens best . the others are ben's kosher deli
And Ben's Best is far far better than Ben's.
I mourn the loss of Ben's Best Pastrami sandwich, like I did the closing of the Stage Deli. I was never much fond of the Carnegie Deli, though.
But the two times I ate at Ben's Best, the place had zero business. I can see a ride on the R train this month to get my last really good hot pastrami on rye.
The "bike lanes" theory is just so much hooey. Truth is BB drove himself out of business by pricing himself out of the Queens Boulevard neighborhood. But good belly cut brisket pastrami or corned beef is an expensive meat, no getting around that, especially with the extreme protectionism heaped on the U.S. beef industry.
Without a definition of "over the years" your statement has no meaning. Beef prices have soared since the "Mad Cow Disease" fake hysteria that led to the banning of most foreign beef, giving U.S. producers monopolistic control over prices.
Actually i just looked at the chart for beef and you are correct , it has been on a big up swing again after falling.
But you can get deli style sandwiches way cheaper at the diner. Here in queens on main st prices on everything are insanely high because so much goes to these kosher sanctioning sects. There was a war going on with two sanctioning camps fighting over the stores .
If a merchant joined one and not the other he was boycotted by the other group
Without a definition of "over the years" your statement has no meaning. Beef prices have soared since the "Mad Cow Disease" fake hysteria that led to the banning of most foreign beef, giving U.S. producers monopolistic control over prices.
There is plenty of imported beef around. The problem is the supply of kosher beef, especially briskets and plates (or navels) for corned beef and pastrami. The big supplier is "AgriStar Processors" in Postville, Iowa. This is the same infamous operation that got shut down a few years ago and is now owned by a Montreal billionaire named Hershey Friedman. Because of supply and demand, AgriStar can charge big bucks for those 2 cuts.
A lot of previously kosher delis have switched to non-kosher suppliers, Katz's being the prime example. They can choose what quality grade to buy and not rely on kosher suppliers who tend to throw a lot of ungraded (no roll) beef in the mix.
It's been like that for some time now though. The owner blames the new bike lanes, which are a much more recent arrival than the Asian Jew. It takes away a lot of parking. I've actually decided to not go there too long ago because I didn't want to deal with the parking situation around there. Plus the food quality has taken a bit of a hit as of late, so not worth the trouble as much as it once would be.
But the parking spaces lost due to the new bike lanes are also relatively recent as well. So although the owner blames that for the downturn of business, I doubt it is the only reason. I think the older generation that likes this style of food is also dying out so I would assume that it is a contributing factor as well.
If you go to Katz's, which is not actually kosher, the prices are probably similar (I've never been to Ben's Best, so I can't say for sure.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by mathjak107
Actually i just looked at the chart for beef and you are correct , it has been on a big up swing again after falling.
But you can get deli style sandwiches way cheaper at the diner. Here in queens on main st prices on everything are insanely high because so much goes to these kosher sanctioning sects. There was a war going on with two sanctioning camps fighting over the stores .
If a merchant joined one and not the other he was boycotted by the other group
his decline in sales is due to kosher certification from an unreliable/suspect Rabbinical authority.
A good example of kosher fraud was the Doheny Kosher Market in Los Angeles. In the beginning of the video below, note the box on the right labeled "AgriStar Processors," which is kosher. The owners of Doheny would place non-kosher meats in the box labeled "AgriStar," jack up the prices and sell that meat as kosher. This caused a big scandal in the orthodox Jewish community in Los Angeles.
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