The four-generation backstory in two paragraphs
Joel Russ arrived from Strzyzow in 1907, sold schmaltz herring off a barrel on the Lower East Side, and opened a storefront at 179 East Houston in 1914. He had no sons, so in 1933 he renamed the shop Russ & Daughters and put Hattie, Ida and Anne behind the counter — reportedly the first business in the United States to put 'daughters' in the name. Four generations later, Niki Russ Federman and Josh Russ Tupper run the place. The original shop still slices to order, in the same room, with the same hand-cut technique.
In 2014, for the company's 100th anniversary, the cousins opened Russ & Daughters Cafe four blocks south, at 127 Orchard between Delancey and Rivington. It is the only sit-down branch in the city. White subway tile, tin ceiling, marble counter, art deco lettering, eighty seats. Same fish, same bagels, same bialys — but eaten with a fork at a table instead of carried home in waxed paper.
What to order — the platter, the egg cream, and the thing on the side
The menu rewards a particular discipline: order one platter for the table, one hot dish for yourself, one drink each, and stop. The Classic is the platter to order on a first visit. It comes with thinly sliced Gaspe Nova smoked salmon arranged in roses, a halved everything bagel, scallion cream cheese, capers, sliced cucumber, red onion, tomato, and a small dish of fresh dill. It is the appetizing-shop tradition in single-board form, and the salmon is hand-sliced in the back room minutes before it reaches you.
For the hot dish, the move is the latke board — three crisp potato latkes with applesauce and sour cream, or the upgrade with smoked salmon and a poached egg on top. The borscht in winter is the only soup that justifies the wait in any season. The kasha varnishkes — bowtie pasta with toasted buckwheat groats and caramelized onions — is the dish to order if you grew up nowhere near a Jewish grandmother and want to know what one tastes like.
Drink an egg cream. The chocolate egg cream — milk, Fox's U-bet syrup, seltzer, no egg and no cream and never has been — is the thing the cafe is quietly best at in the city. It is a few dollars of New York history in a fountain glass, and it is gone in four sips.
How to time the Saturday brunch so the line works
The cafe opens at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday. From 8:30 to about 9:45, you walk in. From roughly 10:00 to 1:30, the wait runs forty minutes to an hour and fifteen minutes. After 2:00 p.m. the wait drops to twenty minutes and stays there until close at 4:00.
The cafe does not take reservations for parties under six. Walk-ins put their name down at the host stand and are texted when the table is ready, which means you can put your name in and walk the four blocks north to the original shop at 179 East Houston, watch a counterman slice a side of salmon, and walk back. That is the move.
If you cannot do Saturday, Sunday brunch runs the same hours and the same menu with a slightly shorter wait. Weekday breakfast — Tuesday through Friday from 8:30 — is the secret hour: no line, the same kitchen, half the noise.
What to do with the rest of the morning
After brunch, walk one block east to the Tenement Museum at 103 Orchard for the 12:30 tenement apartment tour — the building was home to immigrant families from the 1860s onward, and the Saturday tour is the one most likely to feature a family who would have bought their herring from Joel Russ himself.
Or walk two blocks south to Economy Candy at 108 Rivington — open since 1937, three aisles of penny candy and chocolate cigarettes that the Cohen family has been running for three generations. Or three blocks west to Katz's Delicatessen at 205 East Houston, where you do not eat — you have just eaten — but where you stand at the window and look at the pastrami being hand-cut and feel grateful that this much of the Lower East Side has held its ground.
Practical notes
- Address: 127 Orchard Street, between Delancey and Rivington, Lower East Side.
- Saturday hours: 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. (brunch menu all day).
- Best windows: 8:30 to 9:45 (walk in), or after 2:00 p.m. (twenty-minute wait).
- Reservations: parties of six or more only, on Resy. Smaller parties walk in.
- Closest train: F to Delancey-Essex, then one block east on Rivington.
- Pair with: Tenement Museum tour at 103 Orchard, or Economy Candy at 108 Rivington.
- Original shop: Russ & Daughters at 179 East Houston, four blocks north — open since 1914.
Pull up a chair on Orchard Street and eat what four generations of one family have been arranging on the same kind of plate since the year the Panama Canal opened. The Classic platter is a hundred and twelve years of New York on a slate. The egg cream is the chaser. The room is the room. Take your time.
Sources consulted: russanddaughterscafe.com · russanddaughters.com · tenement.org · economycandy.com · ny.eater.com · en.wikipedia.org
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