BY TARA BURKE

Katz’s Delicatessen is renown for their authentic corned beef and pastrami sandwiches. We had never been there so we decided to try them out one evening. They are pretty pricy rounding out at $18 and up for each sandwich. However, they are huge and packed with meat so they are definitely shareable. Cailin and I did just that and shared a corned beef sandwich. Our table also ordered a pastrami rueben and a corned beef rueben.

Everyone enjoyed their sandwiches despite a minor panic that happened before we even started eating. Katz’s has a system for ordering and paying that requires all customers to return a green little slip to the register before you go out. The green slips are your receipts and everyone needs to hand theirs in before they leave even if they didn’t use it. Otherwise, they will be charged a $50.00 fine! Although they do have warning signs at the front of the restaurant that say as much, when you are walking into the crowded delicatessen it’s hard to notice them. The hostesses usher you in as quickly as possible and don’t really make the receipt rules that clear. You go up to the sandwich counter to order your food and they write down what you bought on the back of your ticket. We used three of our tickets, but the other one could not be found. We all crazily searched our bags for the fourth ticket and couldn’t find it. Eventually, we had to stomach defeat, no pun intended haha, and just eat our sandwiches knowing we’d be docked with a $50 fine for nothing. We even called one of the security guards over to prove that we only ordered what was on the table…but I don’t think he was willing to help that much. Luckily, after we ate we did another less frantic search for the ticket and found it in a deep inside zipper pocket of one of our bags. One of those “safe keeping places” that actually mean you will never see the item you are trying to keep safe again.

We were relieved to say the least. As a result my one piece of advice when going to Katz’s Delicatessen isn’t order the pastrami it’s the best… it’s DO NOT let those green tickets out of your sight.