Big Changes Coming To Iconic T & L Luncheonette In Bath Beach

Anyone who has grown up in Southwest Brooklyn has been to T & L Luncheonette (2024 Cropsey Avenue) in Bath Beach. The classic eatery has fed neighbors in Bensonhurst, Gravesend, and beyond for over 60 years. It is one of the few places in Brooklyn where you can still buy a New York egg cream.

But today, T & L looks quite different than long-time residents may remember it. Gone are the luncheonette’s signature padded booths that regular patrons used to lounge in. Owner Carlo Muraco, 51, ripped them out last week to make room for more refrigerators.

Muraco tells us he is revamping the luncheonette to adapt to demographic shifts in the neighborhood, which was once predominately Irish, Italian, and Jewish. There will be a grand opening for the new-and-improved deli on Monday, December 15.

The New York Daily News first reported the changes coming to T & L:

He bought the place 15 years ago, and admits he was slow to catch up with new demographics.

“There used to be a day when we’d sell 100 hot dogs with ketchup and sauerkraut,” Muraco said. “Now we might sell 10.”

People from Russia, China and the Middle East fill the neighborhood these days. Bensonhurst has the second-largest concentration of immigrants in New York City, second only to Washington Heights, according to a 2013 U.S. Census report.

The new T & L will have a much larger grocery section as well as a plethora of new menu items.

“I was definitely was very hesitant to do what we have done, but it just wasn’t working,” Muraco says. “The people aren’t buy pastrami and knishes anymore.”

The luncheonette’s most iconic foods – the knishes, the egg creams, their famous Philly cheese steaks – will still be available for purchase, but now T & L will also serve ready-made sushi, deserts, and new deli meats that some of its Russian patrons have requested.

Muraco says he and his partner Louis Santanelli consulted their Chinese, Russian, and Middle Eastern neighbors to find out what foods they would like to see in the store and they will design the new menu accordingly.

Not everyone is pleased with the change. Some long-time customers are still nostalgic for the T & L of their childhoods.

“In the 70s, they used to have booths all the way down, it was packed,” says Joan Tomasichio, 62, who has been eating at T & L for over 40 years. “Everyone knew everyone. We used to come in and it was always like home. Now the booths are gone. It’s not the same.”

Still, others say it is the colorful people, the regulars – not the booths or the Italian fare – that lend T & L its warm and inviting atmosphere.

“The best part is the characters that come in here,” says T & L chef Roberto Palacios. “Some of them have been coming every day for 30 years,”