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New Yorkers are driving 3 hours for a sandwich with a pickle for a bun
By
Ryan Kailath
Published Jun 25, 2024
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Photo by Ryan Kailath / Gothamist
By
Ryan Kailath
Published Jun 25, 2024
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In January, an Italian deli on Long Island's South Shore began selling a sandwich with a pickle for a bun.
The sandwich is small, but comes with any filling you want — though there's only so much meat you can tuck between two halves of a pickle. It sells for about $10, depending on your choice of meats and toppings.
That would be the end of the story, if the internet hadn’t found it.
But in May, a cashier’s older sister reviewed the sandwich on TikTok.
“Mm, that is so good,” she said in the video.
Six weeks and 4.1 million views later, Seven Brothers Gourmet in Oceanside has lines that sometimes stretch out the door.
A group of people waits in line for the viral sandwich.
Photo by Ryan Kailath / Gothamist
The deli sells up to 250 pickle sandwiches daily, and co-owner Anthony Fiorito said people drive from as far as Albany to try it.
“It has been pickle mania,” Fiorito said on Monday, at the height of the lunch rush. He had taken a break from his position behind the counter, where he was scooping out the centers of pickles to make them less soggy.
“I feel like we’ve been in the twilight zone with this whole thing,” said Fiorito.
Fiorito said he could not remember how or why the deli first started making the sandwich back in January, but it “did not blow up at all” and “it was like, nothing” until the May TikTok video went viral. At least one other deli in New York – Yaphank Deli, located an hour’s drive east of Oceanside – has been making a pickle sandwich for even longer.
Gen Z’s pickle obsession is particularly pronounced in New York, where pickles were introduced by the Dutch and cucumbers were farmed across Brooklyn, according to a “Pickle History Timeline” by the NY Food Museum.
Fiorito said the owner of his pickle supplier, Boar’s Head, personally visited the store after it upped its weekly order by 1,400%. The deli has created a separate line for the sandwich to spare its bemused and sometimes disgruntled longtime customers from the new crowds.
Those crowds are mostly teenage girls who have seen the multiplying number of TikTok reviews of the sandwich, Fiorito said.
“But then the parents want to try it, or the boyfriends want to try it, so you’re really getting everybody,” he said.
Leigha Zaman from nearby Oceanside High School was in the pickle line on Monday afternoon.
Behind the counter at Seven Brothers Gourmet
Photo by Ryan Kailath / Gothamist
“I saw it on TikTok and I’m like, a huge pickle fan,” Zaman said. “So I was like, I need to try this.”
Two pairs of sisters who had driven more than an hour from Ridge on the North Shore were enjoying their sandwiches outside.
“I think this is the best sandwich I’ve ever had in my entire life,” said Kaley Cerniglia.
“It was an 11 out of 10,” added Julianna Bellas.
The girls caught a ride with their older sisters, who attend nearby Hofstra University. Sophomore Ashley Cerniglia masterminded the plan to drive out.
Ashley Cerniglia said she doesn't hate bread, she just loves pickles. She would eat the sandwich chopped up as a salad if the deli offered it.
Fiorito said he’s only now for the first time meeting the children of his longtime regulars. His father founded Seven Brothers in 1972.
“It’s always the mom and the dads coming in, and now they’re coming in with their kids,” Fiorito said. “It’s like, holy crap! I’ve never seen the kids.”
He’s unsure whether the deli will need to hire more employees permanently, or whether the pickle mania will fade as quickly as it came.
“It’s cool to bring this energy into the store,” he said. “And it puts us on the map, hopefully.”
One young woman walking out with a pickle sandwich happened to be the one who started it all.
Gabby Palmigiano has about 1,400 followers on TikTok, where she goes by gabbyparmesan.
Since the original video blew up on May 14, she’s been filming new videos where she reviews the pickle sandwich in different configurations, like a hot dog pickle sandwich (111,000 views) and a BBQ chicken pickle sandwich (2,748 views).
“I went out the other night and like three people came up to me and were like, ‘Oh you’re the pickle girl,’” Palmigiano said. “That’s how I’m known now.”
Tagged
food
long island
Ryan Kailath
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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