More than that, they field servers who are brusque enough, or in some cases downright surly enough, to satisfy a craving for New York deli authenticity.
So the news last week that old-school Murray's was being sold was bound to set tongues wagging in parts of Bala, Lower Merion, and the monied lower Main Line.
That it was being bought, though, by the Wakim brothers, the enterprising Lebanese family who own (among other eateries) Al Dar Bistro next door, set them wagging overtime.
And nowhere more freely, to be sure, than in the tired padded booths of venerable Murray's itself.
One morning last week, a Jewish grandmother, her two grandchildren toying with challah French toast, was moved to pass mistaken judgment: "They say Greek people own it," she said of Al Dar. "I don't care who owns it; I'm not coming in for a corned beef sandwich!"
The fact that the Wakims haven't been ready to disclose their entire business plan had left big blanks that the locals are happy to fill. (The brothers - Joseph, George and Michel - are not Greek, of course, but Lebanese Christians, whose family has owned olive groves in Lebanon's northern Koura region for 400 years. The olive oil on the tables at Al Dar, in fact, is from the family's ancient groves.)
In a booth closer to the kitchen from the Jewish grandmother, Michel Wakim himself was consulting with an associate in a baseball cap by the name of Sean.
No, he said, Murray's wouldn't close for renovations, as one employee had just told me: A cosmetic "freshening up" would be completed during off-hour shifts, from 10 p.m. until 4 a.m.
No, he said, it wasn't going to be in any way, shape or form an extension of Al Dar's: It was going to be a Jewish deli - Murray's Deli, with all the mainstay dishes, but nicer booths.
