Last year, we wept salty tears at the loss of longstanding LES half-sour slinger, Guss' Pickles. To be fair, they just moved to Borough Park, but still, it's not the same. So we were pretty psyched to hear that this weekend, Guss' will be making an exciting, if temporary, return near their old stomping grounds, with a booth at the Hester St. Fair on Saturdays.
Guss' Pickles Making Triumphant Return to LES
Guss' Pickles' Proud Name Will Die In The Move
Not only will pickle purveyor Guss' Pickles be moving from its longtime Lower East Side home to Brooklyn, but it'll be losing its name, too! Co-owner Pat Fairhurst has revealed that according to the terms of a prior lawsuit settlement, she's required to relinquish the name if she does pickle business anywhere else. It's a little complicated, but in 2006 Fairhurst got into a legal fight over the Guss' name with Steve and Andrew Leibowitz, a father-son team who run United Pickle in the Bronx and tried to open up a pickle shop named Guss' on Long Island. Lawsuits and counter-lawsuits ensued, with both parties asserting their right to the Guss' legacy—which stretches back to Isidor Guss, a Polish immigrant who sold pushcart pickles and later opened up the LES shop. But Fairhurst, who has owned Guss' since 2004, doesn't seem worried about dropping the historic name; she tells the Daily News, "It doesn't matter what our name is. People are going to know where I'm going. I'll put whatever I want on the sign, and they'll still come because it's our pickles they want."
Guss' Pickles Reaches the Bottom of the Barrel
This year's New York City International Pickle Day Festival, taking place on October 4, will be a lot more brinier than usual, supplemented with free flowing half-sour tears. The reason? Earlier today, news broke that Lower East Side tenement-era survivors Guss' Pickles will pack up their barrels four months from now and move to Borough Park.
Everybody's Pickling... I Can't Hear a Word You're Saying
Hosted by the NY Food Museum and the Lower East Side Business Improvement District, the Eighth Annual International Pickle Day takes place this Sunday on Orchard Street, rain or brine. Pickled things play a storied part in the last 400 years of Manhattan history, beginning when the island was “home to the world’s largest pickle industry” in the 17th century, and pickle barrels grew on trees.

