Chicken salad has a long history at Shopsin’s. It’s been made in a number of different ways, none of which I totally remember–though I do remember that originally I made chicken salad with turkey. Don’t ask me why I didn’t use chicken for the chicken salad because I really don’t know. Probably it’s because I was a grocery store, so I didn’t have cooked chickens, but I did have the cooked turkey breasts that we used for making sandwiches.

People immediately got stuck on my chicken salad. I served it on bread sharp enough to cut your gums, from Zito’s, a place that used to be around the corner on Bleecker Street. My regular customers would come in and start to order something different, and then they would change their mind and say, “No. I think I’ll have the chicken salad.” Bob Dylan, who lived in the neighborhood, was hooked on it for years.