Hymie’s Deli flooded, leaving regulars high and dry

When Hymie’s Delicatessen in Lower Merion flooded in early January and closed its doors to make repairs, owner Louis Barson started fielding dozens of agitated calls and texts.

The regulars were not pleased. They needed breakfast.

A water main break on Montgomery Avenue drenched the beloved deli’s basement on Jan. 10, destroying Hymie’s three walk-in freezers and fridges, shorting the transformer, and soaking Barson and his wife’s basement offices. By the end of the day, the water was five feet high. Menus, keepsakes, and old blueprints Barson had drawn on napkins and saved for decades were all ruined.

“Last time there was water like this, I think Noah built an ark,” Barson joked.

But Hymie’s is not an ordinary restaurant that can simply close with no repercussions.

“It’s not just the food. The food’s fabulous,” said Linda Z, who has visited Hymie’s every Sunday with her husband, Max, for 45 years. “It’s the people. It’s like a family there.”

Many years ago, when Linda was in the hospital, Max visited her with a handwritten poem. “Today is Sunday / if I had my wish / we’d be sitting at Hymie’s / having bagels and fish,” he read.

Asked what the family was doing on Sundays during the closure, Linda said simply, “starving.”

They’re not alone. Brad Sinoff, 74, eats at Hymie’s every single morning, seven days a week. He arrives around 6 a.m., before the doors are officially open — but they let him in and cook for him anyway. He meets friends there twice a week, dining with what he jokingly calls the “ROMEO” club, as in “Retired Old Men Eating Out.”

That was a perfect morning routine until the Great Flood.

Sinoff showed up the morning of Jan. 10, trying to order his regular sausage, eggs, and potatoes, and saw the destruction. (”Unbelievable,” he said.) In the weeks since, he’s been wandering the region, trying other breakfast spots. But no place is Hymie’s.

“Saturday, I made breakfast at home,” Sinoff, who lives in Malvern, said. “I didn’t like it at all.”

Barson, who also oversaw Hymie’s when it was hit head-on by a truck in 2013, said this was “by far the worst event ever in Hymie’s history, period.” When that Dodge Ram crashed through the front wall of the restaurant 11 years ago, the restaurant cleaned up and reopened the next day. Barson even hung a 10-by-10 banner on the wall, with an image of the truck in Hymie’s dining room, declaring “We’re tougher than the truck” in big block letters. They had T-shirts made.

The recent flood, while less glamorous, has already shuttered the family-run deli for almost three weeks. Barson has continued to pay his employees out of pocket while the business is closed, hoping that his insurance will eventually kick in.

At this point, he hopes the restaurant will be able to open by Feb. 12. He remains relatively upbeat.

“I get more upset when we turn out a bad pastrami sandwich,” Barson said, “because we have control over that.”