PJ Bernstein

PJ Bernstein opened the 3rd Avenue Deli in 1965 and customers spread the wildfire word about corned beef and matzoh ball soup tasting just like food made by a million or more Jewish mothers. That free advertising eventually made the classic NY Deli famous even beyond the Upper East Side. Back then, the take-out business was a small operation, welcome, but sometimes difficult to package. Click forward to 2018, when happy patrons often are using their laptops and smartphones to tell family and friends about the gustatorial glory at PJ Bernstein. “It’s a great place to eat, but you can order all this stuff online for home delivery.” Fact is, the deli now delivers food 13 hours a day to businesses and homes within the region, AND each month that goes by the online ordering business grabs a larger percentage of the delivery business that once was all telephone all the time. There’s never a busy signal online (unless you’re swiping the neighbor’s bandwidth) and GPS technology means the delivery server will find your location with ease. Of course, phone orders are welcome (212-879-0914) and the increasing delivery business is handled by an efficient operation with modern packaging to keep oomph in the herring and snap in the pickles. What can you order online? PJ Bernstein’s longest-serving waiter (working in 50 years), known to all as Landi, answered: “You can order anything on the menu, but I will tell you that almost every order starts with a consume or a matzoh ball soup,” he said, with a grin. “It’s almost like a law.”