Ratner's

The story

Ratner's was a kosher Jewish dairy restaurant on the Lower East Side. Jacob Harmatz and his brother-in-law Alex Ratner founded it in 1905 on Pitt Street, and the story goes that they flipped a coin to decide whose name would appear on the sign. Ratner left in 1918, and the Harmatz family ran the place from then on.

In 1918 the restaurant moved to 138 Delancey Street, where it stayed until it closed. Jacob's son Harold took over in the mid-1950s. Regular customers included Al Jolson, Fanny Brice, Groucho Marx, Walter Matthau and Elia Kazan, and the gangsters Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky were known to frequent the Delancey Street location. Its specialties included blintzes, pierogies and onion rolls.

The restaurant closed in 2002, and its neon sign came down in 2004. A back room had become a hideaway bar called Lansky's Lounge.

What's There Now

By 2008 the space had become a Sleepy's mattress showroom, with worn Ratner's tiles still visible outside the door.

Everything that was here

• 1905–2002

  Ratner'sRestaurant

  Two brothers-in-law reportedly flipped a coin over whose name went on the sign, and Ratner's then fed the Lower East Side for nearly a century.

  See the map in 1906 →

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Nearby history