Though the deli which officially became Katz’s Delicatessen in 1910 opened on Ludlow Street in New York’s Lower East Side in 1888, it wasn’t until World War II that the slogan many equate with the iconic eatery — “Send a salami to your boy in the Army!” — was coined.
Someone came up with the saying (which rhymes, to a New Yorker) after a batch of salamis was sent to some extended members of the Katz’s family during wartime.
“The owner at that time, one of my grandfather’s partners, his three sons were serving overseas in the armed forces and their grandma was worried they weren’t eating well,” Jake Dell, the third-generation owner of the pastrami purveyor where Harry met Sally, tells InsideHook. “So the story goes that they figured out how to wrap up some salamis and send them overseas. And ever since then, we’ve been doing that.”
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