Kosher Dairy Marks 80 Years At Center Of East Village Life

EAST VILLAGE, NY — For Lenny Weiss, most weekdays begin with a piping hot plate of pierogis and a mug of coffee at B&H Dairy in the East Village. He shuffles to the tiny kosher restaurant from his East Third Street apartment with a newspaper tucked under his arm, slides onto a stool at the lunch counter and greets the staff.

It's a routine he's repeated for some three decades.

"I can't really remember when exactly I started coming here," said Weiss, 67, as he popped a fried dumpling into his mouth. "This place — it's like it's always been a part of my life."

Weiss is part of a rotating cast who have filled the dozen stools and six small tables that hug the wall in B&H Diary at 127 Second Avenue. The restaurant hit the hard-to-come-by New York milestone of 80-years-old this year and marked the occasion with a birthday bash this week, loaded with free food and fond memories.

The kosher eatery was founded by Abie Bergson in 1938 for a generation of Jewish immigrants, serving Yiddish comfort-staples including crisp latkes, knishes and borscht. The menu has changed little since then, although the eatery has shifted owners a handful of times. Today, it is run by an Egyptian Muslim, Fawzy Abdelwahed, and his Polish Catholic wife, Ola Smigielska, who try and keep things consistent.

"We don’t have a big menu. It has barely changed," said Smigielska, who donned a T-shirt designed by a customer printed with, "Challah! Por favor." "We focus on making what we serve good. We still make the challah here."

The fresh, old-world comfort food keeps empty bellies coming back for more, but it's the friendly faces who have turned hungry customers into long-time patrons.

"It's like a bar," Smigielska said with a wave to a departing customer. "You're just waiting for them to come back for the next visit."

Locals who began noshing on blintzes when they were kids now bring their children to the restaurant for the timeless grub, but also to mingle with cashiers, waiters and cooks who have worked at the restaurant for years. One couple met and got engaged at B&H — they also had their wedding catered by the eatery. Another stopped in for one last meal before checking into the hospital to give birth to their son.

"It’s a place that clearly has 80 years worth of history and I think 80 years worth of family," said Upper West Sider Jesse Chan-Norris, who stopped by with his now one-year-old son – the child born hours after his parents stopped for a meal. "And every time I came here they knew me and knew my order. It’s the sort of spot that endures through all the changes that this neighborhood has gone through."'

Upper East Side resident Bonita Rausch, another regular, developed a friendship that spans continents at B&H after a three-hour meal with three French students she met in Central Park this May — she still keeps in touch with the trio and plans to fly to Paris to visit them.

When Rausch was sick, the restaurant delivered her matzo ball soup. When it was her mother's birthday the grill-counter cook, Mike, gifted her cash for a present and schlepped from Brooklyn with a birthday cake that read, "Happy birthday mom."

"He bought my mom a birthday cake for her birthday, now who does that?" Rausch said. "Sometimes I call my mom and they speak on the phone because he says to me, ‘We’re family.’”

In 2015, the restaurant's fate was up in the air when the East Village gas explosion leveled the block's corner lots and killed two. B&H was essentially untouched by the blast, but the owners were buried under red tape trying to re-open. Regular Andy Reynolds, whose day job is in public relations, helped rally support for the kosher dairy and launched a crowdfunding campaign to help B&H get back on its feet.

It managed to re-open less than a month after the explosion.

Abie Bergson's daughter can hardly believe that her father's legacy has continued for eight decades.

"It's amazing to see a slice of what New York used to be and it's even more amazing that these people feel the way I do," said Florence Goldberg, 76, who traveled from Florida to attend B&H's 80th birthday celebration.

"The new owners and the former owners all have that same feeling toward the people who come in. There’s such camaraderie and love between everyone — it really is something."

The current owner, Abdelwahed, was overwhelmed by the dozens of loyal customers who flocked to B&H Wednesday for the eatery's birthday bash.

"This restaurant must be here. It's a part of the neighborhood," he said, surveying the crowd from Second Avenue. "It’s overwhelming to see all the support from the customers. It feels like family — it’s a family."

Lead and secondary photo courtesy of Caroline Spivack/Patch. The third photo depicts owner Fawzy Abdelwahed and his wife Ola Smigielska, courtesy of Andy Reynolds. The fourth photo is of Abie Bergson with Leo Ratnofsky and Dave behind the counter at B&H Dairy during the 1950s, courtesy of Florence Goldberg.