Last Friday, I was walking down West 37th Street off of Eight Avenue when I happened to pass by this freight entrance (you can see a man wheeling something out of it below). There are a zillion unremarkable freight elevator entrances on 37th Street, and normally I wouldn’t look twice…
But something caught my eye about this one…
It had a restaurant sign:
Curious, I headed inside through the two industrial doors. The walls had all the hallmarks of a freight entrance, and people kept passing by me carrying in boxes and wheeling handtrucks…But over the second doorway was a sign reading “Come In We’re Open (Abierto)”…
And sure enough, nestled in the corner…
…was the coziest little Latin restaurant in New York!
This is the El Sabroso, literally located in the freight elevator hallway of the building at 265 West 37th Street and consisting of a lunch counter, five stools and a tiny kitchen with pastel pink tiles. A fan keeps things cool, and there’s even a little TV tuned to the game. Do you need anything more?
The place was hopping when I went in, with all the stools taken, and a constant stream of people getting orders to go:
And with good reason – this hidden lunch counter is apparently a midtown favorite and has some great reviews, including a 9/10 from the Guardian (actually beating out Fette Sau in a contest of “tasty but cheap”). All the food is made by Tony, who’s been running the place for 16 years. Everything is cooked on this little stove, and when it’s gone, lunch is over.
I had just eaten lunch, so I’m going to have to go back. But the prices are right – here’s the menu (English in parentheses):
But man…Just a minute or two before finding it, I was literally thinking about the number of times I’d walked around this part of Manhattan, and how there couldn’t possibly be anything left to stumble upon. And then, I saw the restaurant sign. What was I thinking?
-SCOUT
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