Though I guess this happened last summer, I didn't seen it until this week: Zum Stammtisch, the wonderful old German restaurant in Glendale, Queens, has opened a pork store next door.
The butcher shop is located at 69-40 Myrtle Ave. is co-owned by Werner and Hans Lehner, who own Zum Stammtisch. The store offers a wide variety of quality meats, sausage, cheeses and products imported from Germany.
On the less happy side, I strolled down a couple blocks to where Zum's competitor, Von Westernhagen's, used to stand to see what its replacement looked like. Edison Place looks clean and decent. But it also looks like a hundred other polished-wood-and-flatscreen upscale bar/eateries, the kind that are pretending to be posh and individual but are really just cookie cutter joints one step up from TGIF's. The interior layout is basically the same, except it doesn't feel like you're walking into someone's living room anymore. And the actual old time bathrooms have now been refashioned as "old time bathrooms." One could scream.
You should check out Morscher's Pork Store on Catalpa Ave in Ridgewood. Utterly fantastic authentic butcher shop - been there forever. My mother grew up down the street (Herr Morscher was from the same village my grandfather was from) and went to school and church across the street at St. Matthais. When I lived in the city I used to get out there at least once a month. It was great to be able to go in and order in German and have the guys behind the counter remember me and know my family going back to the '50s.
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