The air smells like frying onions, old coffee, and the faint, comforting scent of 1980s vinyl booth upholstery. These are cultural institutions cemented in decades of grease-stained transactions and family arguments.
If you didn’t learn to order your lunch while standing awkwardly behind a local plumber and a taciturn state senator, you haven’t lived. These are the places that refuse to accept Apple Pay, still use paper tickets, and where the counter staff knows your order (and your mother’s maiden name) before you even open your mouth.
Approach with hunger, but also with profound humility.
1. New York Deli: Richmond’s Sandwich Institution Since 1929
Step into Richmond’s oldest continuously operating deli, where sandwich history was literally made. The New York Deli earned legendary status among locals for inventing the “Sailor” sandwich – a divine combination of pastrami, knackwurst, Swiss cheese, and mustard that locals consider mandatory eating…