Dubrow’s was a family owned chain of

cafeteria-style restaurant A cafeteria, called canteen outside the U.S., is a type of food service location in which there is little or no waiting staff table service, whether in a restaurant or within an institution such as a large office building or school; a school ...

s in

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

, and

Miami Beach Miami Beach is a coastal resort city in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. It is part of the Miami metropolitan area of South Florida. The municipality is located on natural and human-made barrier islands between the Atlantic Ocean an ...

. Dubrow’s was established on the Lower East Side of New York City in 1929 by Benjamin Dubrow (né Mowsoha Bencian Dubrowensky), an immigrant from Minsk, Belarus. Benjamin was married to Rose Solowey from the country now known as

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

. They had five children: George, Minnie, Lila, Sylvia and Ruth. George (who married Fannie Feldman and had three children: Irwin, Helene, and Leonard), together with his brothers in law, Max Tobin (who married Minnie and had three children: Sheila, Paul, and Anita), Benjamin Adler (who married Lila and had two sons:

Joseph Joseph is a common male name, derived from the Hebrew (). "Joseph" is used, along with " Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the modern-day Nordic count ...

and Robert), Irving Kaplan (who married Sylvia and had three daughters: Beth Wald, Bonnie Lyons, and Laura Levin) and their descendants went on to establish and operate four new cafeterias and bakeries, three restaurants, a take-out shop, and Toby’s, a southern style chain of cafeterias in Florida. Ruth, George’s youngest sister, who married Seymour Gruber, a physician, had three children, Michael, Steven, and Joanne. When George Dubrow died in an automobile accident in Florida, his eldest son Irwin assumed his responsibilities in managing Dubrow’s. Irwin’s brother Leonard subsequently joined him. In the following years, Paul Tobin took over for his father, and Joseph and Robert Adler worked part-time with their father. Irving Kaplan stayed with Dubrow’s until the last location’s closing. Dubrow's was a New York City landmark for many decades with restaurants in both

and

and later in

. There were two Dubrow’s Cafeterias in Brooklyn, one on Kings Highway and one on

Eastern Parkway Eastern Parkway is a major east–west boulevard in the borough (New York City), New York City borough of Brooklyn. Designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, it was built between 1870 and 1874 and has been credited as the world's fir ...

. The Dubrow’s Cafeteria in Miami Beach was located on

Lincoln Road Lincoln Road Mall is a pedestrian road running east–west parallel between 16th Street and 17th Street in Miami Beach, Florida, United States. Once completely open to vehicular traffic, it now hosts a pedestrian mall replete with shops, rest ...

. The Manhattan Dubrow's was an important part of New York's Garment district in the early- to mid-twentieth century. It was a hub of activity for the

International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU) was a labor union for employees in the women's clothing industry in the United States. It was one of the largest unions in the country, one of the first to have a primarily female membersh ...

. Many famous politicians used both the Brooklyn and the Manhattan locations as stumping spots for their political campaigns. These included Presidents

John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), also known as JFK, was the 35th president of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the first Roman Catholic and youngest person elected p ...

, and

Jimmy Carter James Earl Carter Jr. (October 1, 1924December 29, 2024) was an American politician and humanitarian who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party ...

when they were running for office,

Robert F. Kennedy Robert Francis Kennedy (November 20, 1925 – June 6, 1968), also known as RFK, was an American politician and lawyer. He served as the 64th United States attorney general from January 1961 to September 1964, and as a U.S. senator from New Yo ...

, and

Hugh Carey Hugh Leo Carey (April 11, 1919 – August 7, 2011) was an American politician and attorney of the Democratic Party who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1961 to 1974 and as the 51st governor of New York from 1975 to 1982. Early ...

and

W. Averell Harriman William Averell Harriman (November 15, 1891July 26, 1986) was an American politician, businessman, and diplomat. He was a founder of Harriman & Co. which merged with the older Brown Brothers to form the Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. investment ...

, both former governors of New York. According to multiple biographies, baseball player

Sandy Koufax Sanford Koufax (; né Braun; born December 30, 1935), nicknamed "the Left Arm of God", is an American former baseball pitcher who played 12 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers from 195 ...

announced his decision to sign with the

Brooklyn Dodgers The Brooklyn Dodgers were a Major League Baseball team founded in 1883 as the Brooklyn Grays. In 1884, it became a member of the American Association as the Brooklyn Atlantics before joining the National League in 1890. They remained in Brook ...

in front of Dubrow's Cafeteria on Kings Highway in Brooklyn. The children's author

Bruce Coville Bruce Farrington Coville (, born May 16, 1950) is an author of young adult fiction. Coville was first published in 1977 and has written over 100 books. Biography Coville was born on May 16, 1950, in Syracuse, New York, where he resided . Bruc ...

also wrote about working at Dubrow's for a brief period of time. The Manhattan Dubrow's was the site of the

American Playhouse ''American Playhouse'' is an American anthology television series periodically broadcast by Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). It premiered on January 12, 1982, with ''The Shady Hill Kidnapping'', written and narrated by John Cheever and direc ...

production "The Cafeteria", based on the short story (today onlin
here
by

Isaac Bashevis Singer Isaac Bashevis Singer (; 1903 – July 24, 1991) was a Poland, Polish-born Jews, Jewish novelist, short-story writer, memoirist, essayist, and translator in the United States. Some of his works were adapted for the theater. He wrote and publish ...

, which was featured on

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

. The last Dubrow's, located in the Garment District in Manhattan, closed in 1985. In 2023, Three Hills publishe
a collection of photographs of Dubrow's
taken by Marcia Bricker Halperin, along with essays about Dubrow's by several people including

Donald Margulies Donald Margulies (born September 2, 1954) is an American playwright and academic. In 2000, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play '' Dinner with Friends''. Background and education Margulies attended John Dewey High School in Brookly ...

Dubrow's Cafeteria in popular culture

*A photograph by

Garry Winogrand Garry Winogrand (; January 14, 1928 – March 19, 1984) was an American street photographer, who portrayed U.S. life and its social issues in the mid-20th century. Photography curator, historian, and critic John Szarkowski called Winogrand the ...

entitled "Kennedy-Nixon Presidential Campaign, New York, 1960" features Dubrow's prominently. *The novel Subway Music by Reynold Junker features a nostalgic passage about Dubrow's being gone *The poem "Waitress" by Jason Shinder claims to be set in Dubrow's, though there were no waitresses in Dubrow's. *The poem "You Could Live If They Let You" by Wallace Markfield features the lines "As I might speak of e. e. cummings enormous room or Swann's Madeline you speak of Dubrow's Cafeteria and Mallomars." *Ivan Koota did several paintings of Dubrow's in his collection of works depicting his native Brooklyn. *Dennis Ziemienski has a painting of Dubrow's Cafeteria. *Parts of the 1979 Film "

Boardwalk A boardwalk (alternatively board walk, boarded path, or promenade) is an elevated footpath, walkway, or causeway typically built with wooden planks, which functions as a type of low water bridge or small viaduct that enables pedestrians to ...

" were filmed on location in the Dubrow's Cafeteria, Kings Highway & E.16, shortly after it closed, pictured above, in this article. *The novel Revolutionaries by Joshua Furst references a character who is married to Abby Hoffman scrounging for food at Dubrow's in Manhattan.

External links

Compilation of Dubrow's stories, memories, photographs, and paintings assembled by Benjamin Dubrow's great granddaughter, Eve Lyons

References

{{Restaurants in Manhattan Restaurants established in 1929 1985 disestablishments in New York City Defunct restaurants in New York City Cafeteria-style restaurants Defunct restaurant chains in the United States 1929 establishments in New York City