Hand-Mixed Cola and Egg Cream at a 1925 Soda Counter
Two drinks explain this counter: a Coke built from syrup and seltzer, an egg cream under fizz, three blocks from the Met.
🥤 Built Glass by Glass
The counter at Lexington Candy Shop has poured since 1925, through three generations of family and partners, on a stubborn idea that a soda gets built glass by glass. A Coca-Cola is syrup and seltzer mixed by hand, not by a machine in the basement. An egg cream arrives cold, chocolate and milk under a head of fizz that will not wait for you.
Breakfast runs all day, pancakes in the afternoon and a tuna melt before work. Bread comes from Orwashers, ice cream from Bassett's, coffee from Vassilaros, all of them older than most restaurants here. An egg cream costs about six dollars and a basic burger starts around eleven, which keeps the place mid-priced.
Hours are 7:00 AM to 6:00 PM Monday to Friday, 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM Saturday, 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM Sunday. The address is 1226 Lexington Avenue, at 83rd Street. The shop takes no reservations, so walk in and expect to wait for a stool or a table; the counter fills first. The 6 train stops at 77 Street and 86 Street, five to ten minutes on foot, and the Met is three blocks away on the same Museum Mile circuit.
