Butcher Move Sparks UES Kosher Food Fight

UPPER EAST SIDE — With a new kosher butcher on the Upper East Side primed to be a hit, residents are wondering if it could could put an existing business on the block.

Joey Allaham, who owns Manhattan's celeb-magnet kosher restaurants Prime Grill, Prime KO and Solo, opened the sleek 3,000-square-foot Prime Butcher Baker on Second Avenue, near East 82nd Street, on Wednesday.

It's just two blocks south of the nearly 50-year-old Park East Kosher Butchers and Fine Food.

"Every neighborhood deserves to have good quality food with great customer service and this is what we are going to bring," Allaham said via email during a break from butchering downstairs in the shop at 1572 Second Ave.

Allaham, who trained as a butcher in his native Syria, said he chose to open on the Upper East Side because it is a "very residential neighborhood with a lot of families."

He noted that the shop is different than a standard kosher butcher. He's selling exclusive dry-aged USDA Prime specialty cuts, dried in-house. There is duck and veal and even venison.

In the frozen foods section, there are traditional Eastern European Jewish food like knishes, Middle Eastern specialties like kibbeh and a range of other delights, such as porcini mushroom sliders and Japanese-style meatballs.

In the other half of the shop, the bakery features all parve (or non-dairy) cakes, eclairs and muffins. There are also sushi-making kits and seaweed, an array of fancy olive oils and a line of chocolates made exclusively for the shop.

"It has everything you can even think of and it just goes on for miles," said Vivienne Koreto, who has been shopping at Park East since moving to the area 45 years ago but checked out Prime Butcher Baker on its first day.

"I think he's going to put Park East out of business because it's enormous and very impressive," Koreto said.

"It's a very nice store and it's always extremely crowded," Koreto said of Park East. It was "hard to say," whether she'd keep her allegiance.

"I'll probably shop around," she said. "I don't cook too much, so I'm always looking for exciting takeout."

Miriam Wallerstein, who has lived in the neighborhood for 40 years, embraced the new store.

"There has been nothing of this sort in the neighborhood ever," she said.

"There's one kosher butcher around that's had a monopoly, so it's very exciting to see this," she said, without naming names.

Wallerstein, who walks to the Upper West Side every week to shop for kosher meats, gazed at Prime's prepared foods section, which had chicken tempura, Cornish hens with rice and stuffed onions with beef.

"It looks beautiful," she said. "Everything looks tempting."

The Park East Kosher Butchers, which relocated from Madison Avenue to 1623 Second Ave. 10 years ago, was taking its new neighbor in its stride.

"In our religion, in Judaism, we believe that our livelihood comes from God," Park East's co-owner Michael Kane said.

"So with that in mind, we do our best to serve the community and [Prime Butcher] will only make this a more appealing area to shop."

He said the competition only "makes a person and a business stronger."

"We wish them mazel," Kane said, using the Yiddish word for luck, "and hope they wish us the same."

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