Yonah Schimmel's Knish Bakery • 1890

From a pushcart on Coney Island in 1890, Yonah Schimmel began selling knishes that would anchor Lower East Side food culture for over a century. The bakery relocated to its Houston Street storefront in 1910, where four generations have rolled out potato, kasha, and sweet cheese knishes using recipes nearly unchanged since the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Walk in today and the scent of baked dough, the tiled walls, and the hand-scrawled menu evoke an era when this neighborhood fed waves of Eastern European immigrants—one warm knish at a time.