Ratner's

Ratner's was a famous Jewish kosher dairy (milkhik) restaurant on the Lower East Side of New York City. Since it did not serve meat in deference to the kosher rule about not mixing milk and meat products, it was often regarded as a complement to Katz's Deli.

Ownership

Ratner's was founded in 1905 by Jacob Harmatz and his brother-in-law Alex Ratner, who supposedly flipped a coin to decide whose name would be on the sign. Ratner sold his share in the restaurant to Harmatz in 1918, and it remained in the Harmatz family from then on. Jacob's son, Harold Harmatz, took over the business in the mid-1950s, dying a year after the restaurant ceased operation in 2002.

Menu

Brunch was the main meal at the dairy restaurant, and up to 1,200 people were served daily at the peak of its popularity. Noted menu items included cheese blintzes, potato pancakes (latkes), hot onion rolls, and split-pea soup. Other key items were gefilte fish, poached salmon-in-aspic, kasha varnishkes, and vegetable borsht. and many recipes survive in print. According to the "The World-Famous Ratner's Meatless Cookbook", the winner and undisputed champion at Ratner's was its famous onion roll which were featured on every table with every meal. More than fifteen hundred onion rolls were baked daily, three thousand on Sunday.