A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words: Or In This Case A $25.00 Dollar Reuben

 

Back to my Business of Design seminar in New York a few weeks ago — I just have to share this famous New York deli with you.  A couple of the girls I was travelling with really, really wanted a real New York deli sandwich and I, never one to turn down food (unfortunately!), was up for it, too.  We were told that Carnegie was the place to go so our last morning there we set off on a trek to find it.  After a pretty hefty walk we were happy to finally see this sign.  As tends to happen in New York by the time we got there we were a bit tired of walking, and we were good and hungry — ready to chow.  Check out the line to get in: 

There was a line when we got there and there was a line when we left.  Remarkably though it actually moved pretty fast.

It was filled to the brim with people – check out the photo gallery of famous people who have eaten there – and the place was hustling and bustling with “busy-ness”.

 

Can you feel the frenetic vibe in this place?  Filled with people, filled with pictures, filled with food and waiters and waitresses.  Lots of energy here.

One of the wonderful designers we met there is this nice man, Glen Boudreaux of Glen Boudreaux designs.  After a chance meeting in the hotel on our way out we asked him to join us for lunch.  So all the way there and all during lunch we enjoyed some fabulous “design talk”.   We just can’t seem to get enough of it!  In the picture is Glen, me, Traci, Barbara and Dot.

 Okay, I about fell over when I saw that the “sandwiches” were $25.00 each.  Some more, some less, but most were right at about $25.00.  We debated on whether or not to split one, but since we were all hungry and wanted different things we  decided to get our own.  I justified the cost by choosing to save half of it for the plane ride.  (Since you barely even get so much as a pretzel on a 3 1/2 hour flight anymore!)

Okay, now…..seriously!?…have you ever seen anything like this in your life?  These were our “sandwiches”!  I had the sandwich above and Traci had the one below.

This one below was Barbara’s.  I’m here to tell you that one meal……ONE….would have easily fed our entire table.  No kidding…..no exaggeration.  We ate as much as we could and still had enough left over to feed an entire family from EACH plate.  I did “stick to my guns” and made a little sandwich to go to justify the cost and keep from passing out from hunger on the plane.  (Thank goodness….it came in handy on the long flight home.)

I honestly couldn’t help but cringe at the thought of all that leftover food going to waste instead of someone’s hungry belly.  I’m sure there’s a great many people who would have been grateful to have what surely gets tossed in the garbage.  But, it was good food and good fun, I’ll give you that….and it was a genuine “New York experience”.    And when you’re in New York it is after all – all about the experience!