Olneyville New York System
It’s curious that one of rhode island’s oldest food joints — wedged between an Olneyville gas station and a McDonald’s — goes by New York System. At nearly seventy-three years old, the hot wiener depot may have been named for the first stop in the Stavrianakos — shortened to Stevens — family’s immigration from Greece to Brooklyn, but a little meat sauce, onions and celery salt has made it a Rhode Island staple.
Heritage Restaurant Group took over the Providence original and its secondary Cranston location last year, but it appears that even they know that there are certain cultural landmarks you try not to alter. Accordingly, the space remains exactly the same: a black-and-white photo mural of Brooklyn on the back wall, Day-Glo orange and yellow Formica booths floating like islands on the floor, and a largely male crowd that sits on counter stools like they’re at their favorite bar, coffee milks in hand in Providence (and beers in Cranston).
The difference, of course, is that this is an operation that runs on familiarity and wieners rather than the gauzy memories shaped by daytime drinking. These days, you can ship a dozen Olneyville New York System wieners — a combination of beef, pork and veal complete with proprietary meat sauce, a container of crisp, diced onions, a bottle of mustard and celery salt with buns — across the country, but it doesn’t fully capture the throwback, luncheonette feel of a more than seventy-year-old building. Once open twenty-four hours a day until 1968, the Providence location still hums well past midnight, though the crowd often shifts from locals to college students and night workers once the clock moves toward 2 and 3 a.m. on weekends.
Signs on the wall still sport a mid-century sense of humor (“prices vary according to the attitude of the customer” and “buy one wiener for the price of two and receive the second free!”) and the staff keeps the pitch at a Jimmy Stewart level of optimism and care. The daytime manager will tell you he’s been here twenty-six years (since he was nineteen) and that he still speaks to Greg Stevens almost every day. (“He deserves the vacation.”) It’s the combination of conviviality and low prices that keep people coming back, a living testament to the kinder, gentler America that, nowadays, we know only by reputation.
Hot wieners still sit at assembly-line…