Yonah Schimmel's Knish Bakery

Lower East Side

New York City

Art & Culture | Restaurants

The Original Nosh for Over 100 Years in the LES

Cuisine:

Bakery| Food Shop| Jewish

Price:

Features:

About Yonah Schimmel's Knish Bakery

& why it made the Carpe City list

When you step inside Yonah Schimmel’s Knish Bakery, you are entering a space that predates the Chrysler Building by 20 years and hasn’t changed décor or location in all that time.
Yonah Schimmel’s has been turning out knishes at 137 East Houston Street since 1910.
- Now, it’s the last knish standing. Yes folks, you heard it right. Yonah’s is the last remaining knishery in Manhattan.
- Today you’ll find 18 different types of knishes on the menu, from the traditional potato knish to the pizza knish.
Yonah’s began like all great New York businesses do – with a pushcart, a potato and a dream!
- The pushcart in question was pushed by Yonah himself, down in Coney Island in 1890.
- Yonah was a Romanian rabbi whose knish cart hit it big on the southern tip of Brooklyn.
- Soon, he took the show on the road to the southern tip of Manhattan.
- In 1910, Schimmel’s daughter and her husband took over and set up shop at 137 Houston Street.
- Today, the store is still family-owned.
By some accounts, Yonah Schimmel himself invented the knish.
Everyone goes to Yonah Schimmel’s…
- In fact, Milton Glaser, the graphic designer who gave us the I <3 NY Logo – and founded New York Magazine – wrote of Yonah Schimmel’s in 1968, “No New York politician in the last 50 years has been elected to office without having at least one photograph showing him on the Lower East Side with a knish in his face.”
- And in the 50 years since then… everyone still goes. Barbara Streisand, Martha Stewart, Ron Howard, Bobby Cannavale… Most recently, the restaurant was featured in Woody Allen’s 2009 movie Whatever Works, in a scene with Larry David and in 2018 in an episode of Billions.

Carpe City Trivia

So What Exactly is a Knish?

We’ll let the experts at Yonah’s explain. According to their website, com, which breaks it down for you so hard they even give you pronunciation...

A knish (/kəˈnɪʃ/ pronounced knysh)is an Eastern European snack food made popular in North America by Jewish immigrants. A knish consists primarily of potato, onion and seasoning filling wrapped with a thin layer of dough that is baked, never fried.