Guss' Pickles

Profile

While you're waiting for your tour group to gather in front of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, it's worth wandering across the intersection to Guss' Pickles for a briny bite of Jewish history. Started by Russian immigrant Izzy Guss in the early 1910, this sidewalk stand, which moved from Essex to Orchard Street in 2002, is the last remnant of a once-thriving pickle district. Pick your pleasure from one of the giant, plastic barrels trucked in daily from the company's Long Island location: kosher sour, half-sour, quarter-sour, new and spicy pickles, as well as fancy olives, sauerkraut and pickled green tomatoes. The half-sour variety will be familiar territory for anyone who's ever eaten at a Jewish deli, but pickle aficionados swear by the fully sour pickle's intense combination of fresh garlic, spices and saltwater flavors. Cucumber fans will like the bright green new pickles, which have only been fermenting a few days and still have much of their original snap, while iron-stomached food cowboys should head straight for the spicy barrel. — Keach Hagey