A city without a good Jewish deli isn’t a city—it’s a disjointed collection of buildings, people. During the lunch rush at Rachel’s Nosheri, you can find stock brokers, soccer moms, drifters, grifters, and pierced hooligans rubbing shoulders—a true community bonded over the perfection that is an overstuffed sandwich. I am particularly addicted to the Rachel’s Special—a toothsome feast of paper-thin sliced corned beef slathered with coleslaw and Russian dressing atop pillow-soft rye bread—and go there weekly to get one step closer to an inevitably food-induced coronary.

If I had to die at a restaurant, this would be it, with its homey checkerboard floors and super-friendly staff plying me with extra pickles to bribe the guards at the Pearly Gates. The Nosheri has an endless menu of baroque sandwiches, as well as healthy options, smoked fish platters, soups, and salads. In the winter, I like to get a hot potato knish and watch the wanderers of Rittenhouse trudge by the restaurant’s wall of windows. I highly suggest sampling the collection of cookies waiting at the cash register—you can never go wrong with a couple of rugelah, bubelah.

Night vision Rachel’s shot by Flickr bro vveneziani.

Rachel’s
19th & Sansom, Philadelphia, PA 19103
(215) 568-9565