B&H Dairy by Svetlana Kitto

I walk into B&H Dairy and squeeze myself along the narrow aisle between the tables lining the wall and the stools lining the counter. The small deli restaurant is loud with people, the radio and the clattering of plates and bowls. As usual, Raffi, the cook and maĆ®tre d’ of sorts, an immigrant from Pueblo, Mexico, has a couple of things going at once on the grill: an omelet, a grilled cheese sandwich and some breakfast potatoes. He covers the food with a large aluminum foil container, which he then covers with a plate—he has a system in place. Up and down the counter are couples and friends laughing or in eye-locked huddles. I haven’t been to B&H since I moved uptown a few months ago and am happy to be back.

“You!” Raffi puts his hands out in a simulated hug. He wears a black Yankees cap turned to the back.

“Hey!”

“Where you been?”

“Oh, you know, around. I don’t come to this neighborhood that much anymore. I’m so glad you are here I thought maybe you quit.” I throw my backpack under the counter on the tiny dirty ledge, and take out my notebook and pencil.

“Naw, I didn’t quit. The boss was giving me hell though.”

“Yeah I came in and there was this guy I had never seen before at a time that I expected you to be here. So I got worried. What was he giving you hell about?”

“Naw he tries to find things to get mad at me about when business is slow. It’s too bad because it’s not my fault.” He says it as if he almost wishes it were his fault just to make the guy feel better.

“What’s he like?”

“The boss? He’s an Egyptian guy.”

“How long has he been the owner?”

“Not long. Before it was Polish guys.”

“And before that?”

“Jewish guys. Lots of guys! There’s been about a hundred owners! That’s the problem.”

“Wow. How long has it been here?”

“Since 1942. And too many owners.”

He moves down to an older Latina lady with a big plastic flower in her hair and a long gray braid sitting at one of the tables against the wall. All along the wall above the tables are framed displays of rows and rows of miniature blue, green and red pitchers. It took two years before I noticed them. Raffi hands her a paper plate stacked with their signature homemade challah bread from behind the counter. She takes it: “Gracias.”

“Que mas senora?”

“Es todo.”

“Todo.” He tallies up the bill and rips out the check and hands it to her.

“Son nueve juntos.” He winks at her and lifts his chin.

“Gracias, Raffi.”

All of the specials of the day line the wall above the grill opposite the counter on laminated cards tacked up with tape in different pastel colors: SPECIAL SPINACE BLINTZES; SPECIAL FRESH MOZZARELLA SANDWICH; SPECIAL FLOUNDER CASSEROLE WITH CUP OF SOUP; SPECIAL FETA CHEESE OMELET. And then the list of soups that changes from day to day: FRIDAY’S SPECIAL: LIMA BEAN; MATZOH BALL; SPLIT PEA; TOMATO; HOT BORSCHT; VEGETABLE. In the summer they have cold pink borscht with dill, just like my grandmother’s.

Raffi sees me writing and knocks on the counter.

“You see this counter? The countertop is from the seventies.” He reaches his arm over and under it. “But underneath it is the one from the forties. They just put this over it.” He turns around and ladles some borscht into a small bowl.

“Bread and butter?” He says to a young woman behind me with glasses.

“Yes,” she says.

He slaps some margarine on two thick slices of challah and passes the soup and the bread over the counter to her. She barely looks up from her reading to grab the food from his outstretched hands.

“What do you want?” He lifts his chin at me.

“Oh, a hot chocolate would be great.”

“Hot chocolate.” He turns around, takes out a Nestle packet from the box, drops the powder into a mug and fills it with hot water from the coffee machine.

“They say the menu hasn’t changed since it opened, only the prices.” He smiles to himself as he wipes up the hot chocolate on the counter under my mug.

Next to me a young man with hair in his eyes slips into a stool. “Grilled cheese with tomato soup please. Classic,” he says to the girl he is with.

“Bread and butter?”

“Nah,” he says.

“Do you like the food?” I ask him as he puts some bread on the grill.

He widens his eyes in seriousness. “I love it.”

“You do?”

“Oh yeah. The soups!”

“The soups. Which?”

“I like the split pea. The lentil.” He plops the tomato soup in front of the kid with the beanie. “Sandwich is coming,” and he nods his head to the grill where the sandwich is cooking under a plate.

“I used to eat the split pea twice a day.”

“Who makes the soups?”

“The Polish lady comes a couple times a week to make it.”

“There’s a Polish lady? Where?” I look down the aisle into the kitchen at the back of the restaurant, where there are a couple of young Latino guys working.

He shakes his head at me and laughs. “She’s at home!”

Another kid on my left side is digging into a tuna melt with American cheese.

“How’s the sandwich?” Raffi asks wiping down the counter.

“It’s the best sandwich I ever had in New York.” He pauses between bites. “This is my first day in New York, so…”

Raffi laughs and shakes his head. “What are the soups?” The girl sitting on the other side of the boy on my right asks.

“They’re right over your head, lady.”

“Oh my god, the soup is four dollars but the soup and lasagna is 8.50?”

“Yeah, what do you think?” Raffi says.

“That’s so much, I thought it would be like two dollars more!”

“We wouldn’t make any money that way!” He only laughs. He never gets mad.

“Oh no, I made a mistake!” He runs over to his omelet and flips it with a spatula. “That’s not right.” And he starts it over again. “Forgot to put the tomatoes and the spinach in with the eggs, man!” He lifts up the messed up omelet and motions to me. “You want it senorita?”

“Oh no, I ate. Thanks.”

“But it’s on the house!”

“No I just had dinner. But you can give me something else if you want! Like that key lime pie is calling my name.” I nod at the glass case of pies.

“You’re smart!”

“Not too smart.”

“No, you’re not too smart.” He winks and slides a piece of pie at me when no one’s looking.
In comes a gaggle of NYU girls all in different colored tights. They take the big table in the back. All of them order macaroni and cheese, except for one who orders soup, and “extra butter” on her bread.

“Extra butter? Wow,” Raffi shakes his head. They burst into laughter.

An older guy with gray hair creeping out from under his beanie squeezes past me. He wears an oversize dark sweater and pants that are too big for him.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hello.”

“Whatcha doing, writing a book?”

“You could say that.” He has pink warts all over his right cheek. His eyes are so blue and his pupils so small he looks like he is blind. I can’t really tell where or what he is looking at. His teeth are brown, pointy shards. I am scared of his breath but he doesn’t smell like anything.

“I been coming here since the seventies.”

“Wow. What was it like in the seventies?” He slides into the stool next to me and puts his bag down again.

“There used to be all Jewish guys who worked here.” He looks behind the counter as if they are still there. “They would all laugh and make jokes. They were all like him.” He looks at Raffi. “Except Jewish. Now it’s Mexicans who work here. You know, that’s how it works. Whoever is at the bottom rung of society runs the place. He keeps this place together. You gotta have a guy like that running your business.

“There was this one Jewish guy I remember who worked here. He could throw his voice. He was a ventriloquist. He would throw his voice all over the place and confuse the hell out of everybody!

“And when the guys would tip big, the guys behind the counter would call him jumbo jockey. You know like how you bet big on a jockey. You following me?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, well anytime someone would tip big the waiter would say jumbo jockey real loud and everyone working would stop what they were doing and bow as the guy left! Every last one of them would bow and go, ‘Jumbo Jockey!’

“It was all Jewish guys then. Then Puerto Ricans. Now Mexicans. That’s the story of old New York.” He turns to the front door and looks out the window. “And out there, used to be all Vaudeville. Vaudeville theaters. And other places like this. Tons of places like this. Now this is the only one.”

“Yeah.”

“But it was also a dangerous shithole.”

“Right.”

“But there was always something going on on the street. Music, performances, people being crazy. But it was fucking dangerous like you wouldn’t believe. I used to run up and down the streets late at night just to keep myself from getting harassed by some numbnuts criminal. But it was fun. It was different. You heard of TNT?”

“Dynamite?”

“No! TNT were the pressure points. They put the police, this was before Giuliani, this was Mayor Koch. That asshole. He put police on the street 24 hours a day to clean up all the drug points.

“Before the Vaudeville, it was Yiddish theaters. All up and down Second Avenue here. This is one of the only places that is still around from them days!”

“So you’ve been coming here all this time?”

“Oh yeah. They got the best soup.”

“Raffi was telling me they have a Polish lady who comes and makes it.”

“Oh yeah. They used to have another Polish lady. She had a scarf on her head. She was straight off the boat man.” He lowers his voice to a whisper. “She was better!”

“I remember there was this young, really pretty Polish girl who used to work here. I haven’t thought about her in so long. Do you know who I’m talking about?”

“Nah. Don’t think so.”

I wave my hand at Raffi. “Raffi do you remember that girl who used to work here? The young one who was really funny and pretty?”

“About four years ago?” Raffi asks. “She wasn’t that pretty. Not as pretty as you.” He winks at the man in the beanie, who smiles at me.

“No she was this really unforgettable girl. We all loved her.” I look down at my hands embarrassed. “So is it a different group of people who come here now?”

“Oh yeah. The neighborhood’s changed so the people who come here are different. More yuppies and students. It used to be so cheap man. Back in the old days you could get a bowl of soup and a hunk of that challah bread for a dollar. You could eat all your meals here just fine.”

“Raffi said they never changed the menu. I guess that means it’s always been vegetarian.”

“No, no. It’s not vegetarian. It’s called B&H Dairy see?” He points to the menu. “They serve fish here and eggs too. Just no meat. Which is great for me because I’m vegetarian. The Jewish guys who started it they wanted a place that was kosher, do you know what kosher is?”

“Meaning a rabbi blesses it and—“

“No, no! People always get this wrong. You don’t gotta have a rabbi blessing it for it to be kosher. Just no meat in where they serve dairy also.” He pauses. “See that grill?” He points to the grill.

“A-ha.”

“No bacon, no hamburger has never been made on that grill. Not ever. Most places they say they got vegetarian items but they cook their veggie burgers on the same grill that they cook their burgers and crap! That’s why I like this place. They still got the best soup in New York too.”

“You think so?”

“Oh yeah, without a doubt! Without a doubt.” His glacial blue eyes turn back to Raffi. “And him. He’s just like all them Jewish guys.”

“Isn’t that funny? How did that happen?”

“I don’t know man. When they stop having guys like him it won’t be New York anymore.”

“Huh.”

“Well it was good to talk to you. My name’s Joe by the way.”

“Lana.”

“Take care Lana.” He takes out a dollar and leaves it on the counter. “Night Raffi!”

“Hey, where’s the Jumbo Jockey?” Raffi says smiling.

“Eh, wise guy.” He looks at me and blushes. “Hey man, that’s 15 percent!” Joe shuffles out of B&H with his back hunched and his raggedy coat hung over his arm. He looks old and young at the same time. I stare after him wondering where his home is, what it’s like.

Raffi shakes his head at me.

2 comments:

  1. I really enjoyed your piece about B&H, Lana. I was a regular, back in the 70's. Actually, I was more of an insider, you could say.

    The 'Jewish guys', well I knew most of them, at least the ones from that era, and I was good friends with one of them. Lenny Goldstein was the short order cook/counterman for the morning shift. Not only was he a sweetheart of a guy but he was also an amazing cook, as good as I have ever seen, anywhere. Good and fast too.

    The insider part, goes like this. I used to get there about a half hour before the place opened up for the day, and Lenny would unlock the door for me. Just me. So it would be just he and I (and sometimes Anna in the tiny kitchen. She did the baking, and allot of the cooking of prepared foods, blintzes etc)). Lenny would make my breakfast, and we would shoot the breeze about this and that. Only a few of the lights would be on, towards the back, where the grill was, and where I would sit at the counter, so the place didn't look open. I liked it that way. I had the joint, and Lenny to myself. Those were fun times, and the food was absolutely delicious.

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  2. Hi. Couldn't find your e-mail on the site. I just want to let you know that I adapted parts of this for a comic I made about B&H. you can see it here: http://yoburbalino.blogspot.com/2012/10/blog-post.html hope that's cool.

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