Since the 1960s, a Hidden Gem Tucks in the Back of a Doughnut Shop
This is the first installment of Dining in the Past Tense, in which Eater NY travels to restaurants that feel the same way they did decades or even centuries ago.
Most people know Donut Pub as a place to get an old-fashioned or a chocolate dipper, but in fact, the original location has always been a luncheonette.
The restaurant at 203 W. 14th Street near Seventh Avenue, was founded in 1964 as a bakery specializing in doughnuts and coffee, but it also has an L-shaped lunch counter in the back, where you can still find a modest selection of 17 sandwiches.
Priced from $5 to $10, these are not the lush concoctions currently popular, but simple ones consisting of two slices of bread with a thin filling of cheese or meat, dressed in mayonnaise or mustard. There are no salads or soups, or even lettuce and tomato on the sandwiches — and they’re utterly enjoyable as a result.
Ham and cheese is the classic filling, with two slices of boiled ham and a single slice of Swiss cheese, an exercise in extreme culinary minimalism. The grilled cheese boasts twice the amount of American cheese you might expect. And you’ll enjoy watching the cook make it in the sandwich press assisted by two pieces of aluminum foil. The same device is used to make a very good tuna melt made as a wrap, which the menu designates — rather curiously — as a panino. There is plenty of mayo on the tuna salad, and it has that salty tang.
There’s a bacon, egg, and cheese, too, along the usual lines. And you can’t leave the Donut Pub without a doughnut: I’d suggest the so-called old-fashioned, which is a plain deep-brown example with no glaze, frosting, or sprinkles. Do what they used to do in the 1960s, and dip it in your coffee.
