S&P Lunch: Serving Sandwiches in Manhattan Since 1928

S&P Lunch in Manhattan, a century-old sandwich shop across from the Flatiron Building, has survived the Depression, a pandemic closure, and a name change.

Walk into 174 Fifth Avenue, and you’re standing where people have been eating egg creams and tuna melts since 1928. The shop has gone by different names over the decades — it became Eisenberg’s Sandwich Shop in 1929 and stayed that way for most of a century — but the address, the narrow room, and the 40-foot counter with the swiveling stools have never moved. Regulars have been sliding onto those same stools since before most of Fifth Avenue looked the way it does now.

That kind of continuity is rare in New York.

Closed, then not

In 2021, the doors shut. Rent hadn’t been paid in a while, and for a stretch, it looked like Eisenberg’s was headed the way of a long list of other beloved lunch counters that didn’t make it out of the pandemic. Then, in 2022, it reopened — same room, same counter, new owners, new name. S&P Lunch is now run by the team behind Court Street Grocers, and while the old Eisenberg’s name went with the previous owner, the sandwiches, the matzo ball soup, and the general spirit of the place remained.

It’s a rarer outcome than it sounds. Most old-school lunch counters that go dark stay dark, or come back as something unrecognizable.

Why some say it’s “the last human restaurant”

Here’s what makes the shop worth writing about right now, beyond nostalgia: New York’s restaurant scene is quietly automating. Sweetgreen has rolled out an automated kitchen in Manhattan. Shake Shack has tested kiosk-only, cashless locations. A wave of NYC spots have leaned into self-serve booths and order screens specifically so customers don’t have to talk to anyone. None of this is villainous — it’s mostly about speed and labor costs — but it does mean a shrinking number of counters where a person takes your order, makes your sandwich, and hands it to you without a screen in between.

Set against that backdrop, a place like S&P Lunch stops being just a nice old diner and starts looking like an institution. Nobody’s taking your order through an app here. The seltzer supplier is a third-generation deliveryman who still has opinions about how the chocolate syrup no longer mixes right. The staff has been there long enough to remember whether or not there used to be music playing (there was — some just forgot).

The takeaway

None of this is an argument against efficiency. Kiosks have their place, and nobody’s mourning a shorter lunch line. But there’s something worth noting about a restaurant that has survived the Depression, the decline of the American lunch counter, a pandemic, an ownership dispute, and a full rebrand. Plus, the food is delicious!

Worth a visit if you’re ever near the Flatiron Building. Worth watching even if you’re not.