Helmbold Fritz

Picked up one pound each of brisket pastrami, corned beef and pastrami round. Plus, a huge fresh rye bread from Rockland Bakery, and 3 beef salamis. All for a family reunion party. The gang gobbled up the stuff. The best there is in the Capital District, at factory prices. Les, who runs the outlet store, is the best!!!

Stopped by and picked up some pastrami, a lb of beef garlic sausage and beef bacon. They carry a lot of different meats and sausages, including beef summer sausage, corned beef, homemade beef jerky and hot dogs. The beef sausage has a sheep casing, which is great for those of us who are constantly looking for sausage without a pork casing. The guy behind the counter, Less, is really nice and chatted about all the products they carry. He let us know that they are halal certified and carry a few halal products. The pastrami is delicious and very well priced at $ 8.99 a lb. We also picked up a huge loaf of seeded rye bread from Rockland bakery for a little over $ 5. Beef bacon is not easy to find, so I am very excited to have a source nearby.

Hot. Beef. Sandwich.
It’s hard to think of five bucks better spent. Usually, that sandwich is made of their famous corned beef or pastrami. How famous is their pastrami? Well, it’s what they use at Katz’s in NYC. Except at Katz’s they apparently boil the pastrami before serving it so it totally falls apart.
That’s what I learned from the passionate fellow behind the counter today. Well, that, and they had no pastrami prepared for sandwiches.
Well, I’ll just have to come back.
For years I’ve been told of the legend of this place. The place where Old World Provisions meats are sliced and served on bread for a pittance. A manufacturing facility where there is a small retail operation that’s open to the public.
Helmbold Fritz is like a beacon on a hill. Well, it’s on a hill at least. It’s a bit tucked away in the warehouse district around the corner from the Franklin Ballroom. And when you pull into the driveway, you have to go around back to get to the front door.
It’s almost as if they don’t want you there. But they totally want you there. Kinda. When I called to ask if they were open for lunch, the response was, «Lunch? We open at 11.»
I’m unclear if the wooden picnic table around the back of the deli was actually meant for visitors of if its for employees, but we decided to stick around and eat there instead of having a car picnic. It was a glorious day.
Part of me is a bit worried about coming back here for pastrami. Because if it’s half as good as I suspect it will be, it might be hard to keep me away. That fifth star is being reserved until I try their signature products. But I promise to report back.

We stopped by, ice cooler in tow, to stock up on some Hembold wieners. I don’t know about the quality before they were bought out by Old World Provisions (re: Kate H.‘s review), but without that point of reference, the hot dogs are still pretty darn tasty. They held up nicely in the cooler for a couple of days, despite a melted-​ice fiasco that rendered the wieners water-​logged, and we were able to enjoy a taste of troy back home.
The Hembold sauce they sell here is little more than tomato sauce though. I’d make a second stop at Famous Lunch for their Zippy sauce.

Along time ago this was my go to place for all kinds of meats. They carried an extinsive line of wursts, franks, italian sausage, kiebasa, ham, and smoked pork chops. Sad to say, they were bought out by Old World Provisions and the quality took a serious nose dive. The guys who work there are still the same but what they’re selling pales in comparison.