The argument about whether Los Angeles or New York makes the better pastrami sandwich is usually settled, by people who have eaten both, in favour of a counter across the street from MacArthur Park that closes at four in the afternoon. The reason is not the pastrami. Every serious deli brines and smokes competently. The reason is the bread, and once you understand what Langer's does to its rye, the whole sandwich makes a different kind of sense.
Langer's shuts at 4pm and is closed Sundays — this is a lunch plan or it is nothing. Ask Karpo to slot it into your afternoon before the rye runs out.
The bread is the whole argument
Langer's double-bakes its rye. The loaf goes into the oven, comes out, and goes back in, which drives off more moisture and builds a genuinely crisp, structural crust around a still-soft crumb. That matters because the No. 19 is a wet sandwich — hot hand-cut pastrami, coleslaw, Russian dressing and Swiss cheese all pressing outward at once. On ordinary rye that construction turns to paste in about ninety seconds. On a double-baked crust it holds, and you get contrast in every bite instead of a soft heap.
The pastrami is hand-sliced rather than machine-cut, which is why the meat arrives in loose, ruffled folds rather than flat uniform sheets. The Los Angeles Times once called it the Marilyn Monroe of pastrami sandwiches, and the description survives because it is about texture rather than hype.
Order the number, not the description
The menu is numbered and the numbers are how regulars order. The No. 19 is the pastrami, coleslaw, Russian dressing and Swiss on that double-baked rye, and it is the sandwich the restaurant is known for. If you want the meat unobstructed, the plain hot pastrami on rye is the purist's order and it is the better way to actually taste the smoke. Everything else on the board — the matzo ball soup they have been ladling since 1947, the tongue, the corned beef — is competent and beside the point on a first visit.
One sandwich is a meal for most people and comfortably a meal for two if you add soup. The portioning here is from a different era and has not been adjusted downward.
The hours are the trap
Langer's runs 8am to 4pm, Monday through Saturday, and is closed on Sunday. That is the single most common way a visit fails: people treat a famous deli as a dinner destination, arrive at seven and find a dark room. Build it into the middle of a day. Late morning, roughly ten to eleven-thirty, is the calmest stretch; the lunch rush lands hard from noon and the room is a genuine wait by half past twelve.
Al Langer opened the place in 1947 with a twelve-seat counter, and after years of uncertainty about its future the family confirmed in late 2025 that it will stay open through the 2028 Olympic Games and beyond. It is not a place you need to rush to before it disappears — but you do need to get there before four.
Where it actually is
704 South Alvarado Street is in Westlake, facing MacArthur Park, and this is where a lot of visitors hesitate. The practical answer is transit: the Westlake/MacArthur Park Metro station is essentially at the door, which makes Langer's one of the easiest famous restaurants in Los Angeles to reach without a car — genuinely easier than driving and hunting for a space on Alvarado. The other well-known option is the curbside pickup the deli has run for decades: call the order in, pull up on Alvarado, and someone brings it out to the car. If you are eating in, the park across the street with its lake and palms is the obvious place to take a sandwich on a warm day.
Getting there without the parking problem
Langer's sits at 704 South Alvarado Street, on the corner of Seventh, directly across from MacArthur Park. That location is the whole reason people invent excuses not to go, and it is also the reason getting there is easier than almost any other restaurant on this list: the Metro B Line's Westlake/MacArthur Park station lets out essentially at the door. If you are anywhere along the subway, you can be eating a No. 19 in the time it would take you to find parking somewhere else. There is a small lot attached, and it fills.
The other option almost nobody uses is the curbside pickup. Langer's has run a phone-order, pull-up-and-collect service for years, and it works exactly as advertised: you call, you park in the marked spot on Seventh, and somebody walks the bag out to the car. If your only window is a 20-minute gap between two things on the east side of the city, that is the version of Langer's that fits into it, and the sandwich survives the trip better than most because the rye is built to.
The hours are not a suggestion
The kitchen runs roughly eight in the morning to four in the afternoon, Monday to Saturday, and closes on Sunday. That is a full working day, but it is a day that ends before most people think about dinner, and it is the single most common way visitors miss it entirely. Treat Langer's as a lunch and it is easy. Treat it as an evening plan and it does not exist. The quietest stretch is the first hour after opening and the last hour before close; the middle of a weekday lunch is a real wait, and the weekend is worse.
Practical notes
Langer's Delicatessen is at 704 South Alvarado Street in Westlake, opposite MacArthur Park. Open Monday to Saturday, 8am to 4pm; closed Sunday. Order by number — the No. 19 is pastrami, coleslaw, Russian dressing and Swiss on double-baked rye. Pastrami is hand-sliced. Late morning is the quiet window; noon to 1:30 is the rush. The Westlake/MacArthur Park Metro station is at the door. Curbside pickup on Alvarado exists if you call ahead. One sandwich plus soup feeds two.
Tags: #LosAngeles #BestFoodInLosAngeles #LangersDeli #Westlake #MacArthurPark #LAEats #Pastrami #No19 #FoodNearMe #LARestaurants #DeliSandwich #DTLA #RyeBread #LAClassics
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Ask Karpo first
Want to know how long the Alvarado Street counter is running right now, whether you should order at the counter or curbside, and what else is worth a stop on the same Metro line? Ask Karpo before you go.
