![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/2601d7b586b49dee3797db64cef756b14f-BRNYSGGRSS---267.rvertical.w570.jpg\")
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\n Barney Greengrass started selling a limited-edition Knicks tee earlier this year.
\n Photo: Mark Zhelezoglo\n <\/p>\n
In 2014, the Gray\u2019s Papaya on Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village closed for good, and I was inconsolable. Five years later, when City Bakery\u2019s time came to an end, I was in even worse shape. I know the drill. If you\u2019ve lived in New York long enough \u2014 for me, that\u2019s my whole life \u2014 you\u2019re forced to accept that the wrecking ball eventually comes for our local heirlooms.\u00a0But lately I\u2019ve wondered if there is a fate worse than closure: watching an establishment pander itself to the nostalgia-loving influencer crowd in the hope of going viral. Are these the only options available to our legacy institutions? To go out like Japonica, Donohue\u2019s, or Angelica Kitchen, softly and sadly, or to go the way of Katz\u2019s and JG Melon, as overrun as Nantucket with swarms of content-crazed tourists whose willingness to stand in hours-long lines is not shared by most longtime regulars?<\/p>\n
The threat of those lines is why I felt a clench of mild panic when I noticed that some landmarks from my own childhood had, in recent months, become more active on social media and in press outreach. When the limited-edition Barney Greengrass dad caps dropped, I knew there was no going back. But I still wanted to know why \u2014 why risk ruining a good thing with ideas that, at first, seem to fly in the face of these businesses\u2019 hard-worn timelessness?<\/p>\n
One place where the winds of change are whistling at the door is at the 50-plus-year-old Upper East Side caf\u00e9 and prepared foods shop, E.A.T.<\/a> After a renovation and launching an Instagram account, founder and paterfamilias Eli Zabar was suddenly everywhere: chatting with Flynn McGarry in Interview<\/a>, getting featured in the Times\u2019 \u201cStyle\u201d section while hosting a party<\/a> for Substack\u2019s most prominent writers, hitting the How Long Gone<\/a> podcast, and opining on bread and butter for Blackbird<\/a>.<\/p>\n When I ask Eli if he thinks any of these initiatives have made a difference in business, he responds flatly with a \u201cno.\u201d But he says he\u2019s happy to take part, often at the behest of his twin sons, Oliver and Sasha. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen some viral food trends recently that I look at, and I think, you know, We could do those, but it\u2019s just not us,\u201d says Oliver, who tends to the day-to-day operations of his father\u2019s namesake company, which also comprises a collection of gourmet markets throughout Manhattan. But, says Sasha \u2014 who was previously on the payroll and currently manages his Gen-Z-approved dessert shop, Glace<\/a> \u2014\u00a0the family hasn\u2019t done \u201ca good enough job\u201d of recruiting new customers or creating a sense of nostalgia around the market: \u201cThere\u2019s no sentimentality at E.A.T.\u201d But the twins do see an untapped audience and are trying to appeal directly to them: The adult offspring of their longtime customers who have chosen to stay in New York.<\/p>\n \u201cThe people who come to E.A.T. for nostalgia come back because they came with their parents, and now they\u2019re back with their kids and their strollers. They live uptown. They\u2019ve basically turned into their parents,\u201d Oliver says. He gets a lot of feedback from those customers about items they remember eating as children and have returned for\u2014things like the plain sugar doughnut, a ham-and-cheese sandwich on ficelle, or the \u201ctower of bagel\u201d with smoked salmon and cream cheese.<\/p>\n Spreading the gospel of Eli is the job of a restaurant publicist the Zabars recently hired, but talking directly to those potential customers is the charge of Lulu Graham<\/a>, the 26-year-old who oversees social media and marketing for the family. She says the primary question she asks herself is, \u201cHow do we remind the people that went there when they were 2 with their grandparents that they can still go and that it\u2019s exactly the same?\u201d<\/p>\n A similar generational turnover is playing out on the west side of the park at Barney Greengrass<\/a>. \u201cWe have a lot of tourists, but we are not a tourist trap,\u201d says Gary Greengrass, the third-generation owner of the place Anthony Bourdain once said had \u201cthe best breakfast in the universe\u201d and remains on most lists of the city\u2019s most important restaurants. Gary hopes to keep it that way; he\u2019s all for having a line out the door, just not one that snakes down the street and leaves anyone waiting outside for more than 30 minutes. Still, changes are afoot within the Sturgeon King\u2019s fiefdom: After a 2019 Instagram announcement<\/a> that the restaurant had \u201cjoined the digital age,\u201d the restaurant barely posted until earlier this year. Just like that, Gary was all over the feed, standing in the store his grandfather opened in 1908, grinning beside Arnold Schwarzenegger or Martha Stewart, or posing with Andy Cohen after a stint as his show\u2019s guest bartender. In the spring, as the Knicks were starting their playoff run to the NBA Finals, Barney Greengrass released<\/a> a limited-edition tee to mark the occasion, and fans went nuts: Adam Sandler was filmed<\/a> wearing his; David Remnick wrote an ode<\/a> to the hallowed hall of smoked fish.<\/p>\n \n Barney Greengrass merch. Barney Greengrass.\n <\/p>\n \n Barney Greengrass merch. Barney Greengrass.\n <\/p>\n The Knicks shirts, along with two-toned dad caps and some limited-edition World Cup\u2013themed jerseys, are the work of Gary\u2019s 19-year-old son, Moe, an NYU student who sees an opportunity to build further brand recognition and \u201cbring in a whole other clientele\u201d that otherwise wouldn\u2019t make a special trip to that residential block on the Upper West Side. This is the demographic he believes would be primed to visit an outpost of Barney Greengrass in Miami, Vegas, Dallas \u2014 or lower Manhattan, where wants to open branches of his great-grandfather\u2019s flagship \u2026 provided his dad lets him.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to be the Nobu of breakfast,\u201d Moe says before mentioning hotels, a night club, and Sushi Club, the streetwear brand started by Nobu Matsuhisa<\/a> and designer Chris Stamp that hosts pop-ups and collaborates on limited-edition products with companies including Nike and the Gap. Gary is supportive of the clothes, sold under the 1908 label<\/a>, but less sure about Moe\u2019s suggestion to integrate AI into all back-end operations (Gary remains adamant about sending handwritten notes to his customers reminding them to place their orders for the Jewish high holidays).<\/p>\n Sarah Raffetto encountered similar pushback at the 120-year-old pasta emporium her great-grandfather founded<\/a>. She now runs it with her father, uncle, and two cousins, and decisions that might be routine at other shops \u2014 whether to update the website, or add high-protein pastas to the product roster \u2014 are made in the context of how they\u2019ll affect the store\u2019s legacy and its carefully calibrated chemistry. Sarah was able to convince everyone to let her introduce\u00a0sandwiches and a seasonal ice-cream cart, and those have been successful enough to generate a surge in traffic during the slow months of summer and to imagine a future in which Raffetto\u2019s opens a sandwich spinoff. But it\u2019s the monthly supper club she\u2019s introduced \u2014 Petite Pasta Joint<\/a>, which Sarah started with the food-world personality Emily Fedner<\/a> \u2014 that has brought in the most new customers: Spots, when they are announced, sell out within minutes.<\/p>\n In all cases, I probably needn\u2019t worry; the new initiatives, introduced carefully and cautiously and always in the service of the larger enterprise, do little to disrupt business at the flagships. They are, in the end, marketing that\u2019s designed to ensure these spots stay relevant and secure their future, even if, in the case of something like E.A.T., putting their octogenarian founder on a podcast doesn\u2019t always play out in ways the new generation might expect. \u201cHe\u2019s actually, like, really bad at it,\u201d Sasha says of his father\u2019s uncensored appearances, \u201cbut that\u2019s what makes him so endearing.\u201d<\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n ![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/5bb4e3012b4f34478672cd2e586d26e0cb-66C32A2E-B7FC-4558-B72D-D5DB81C60CFF.rdeep-vertical.w460.jpg\")
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