The long carving counter faces a crowded portrait wall, with numbered service bays and a generous central dining aisle.
Katz's began in 1888 as Iceland Brothers, a small deli on Ludlow Street on the Lower East Side. Willy Katz arrived in 1903 and the name became Iceland and Katz; his cousin Benny bought out the brothers in 1910 and Harry Tarowsky joined the partnership in April 1917. Subway construction pushed the deli across the street to 205 East Houston, where the present storefront went up between 1946 and 1949. During World War II the owners' care packages to their sons became the slogan: Send a salami to your boy in the army. Martin Dell, his son Alan and son in law Fred Austin bought in on the 100th anniversary in 1988.
Source · Katz's Delicatessen, Our Story ↗
Houston storefront; long cutter counter; dense photo wall; suspended signs. Contemporary landmark adaptation, distinct from the earlier generic deli. Mood: houston street, lunchtime. Everything is procedural geometry with painted surfaces; nothing is a scan or a photograph. The room is an interpretation, and it hangs the New Yorkers the census recorded at this place first.