Junior’s Cheesecake was founded in 1950 in the heart of Brooklyn on Flatbush Avenue (and DeKalb). The original restaurant remains in place 74 years later; Junior’s has four other locations: two in Times Square, one at Foxwoods, and the 300-seat venue that opened at Resorts World in late February in the space formerly occupied by the Kitchen. Junior’s is, essentially, Resorts World’s new coffee shop.
Junior’s is renowned for the best cheesecake in New York City and beyond, with 25 varieties, plus rich and fancy cakes and pies, along with pastries, brownies, cookies, and more.
It’s also a full-service deli and New York-style diner, with a huge menu of breakfast items and soups, salads, sandwiches, steaks, seafood, barbecue, and chef’s specialties.
On our visit, we opted for the cup of soup and half-sandwich ($19.95), in order to try the matzo ball and corned beef. But the half-san comes on a roll (on the menu, it’s actually called a “plain roll”) and you can’t substitute for bread.
We weren’t about to have a Jewish-style-deli corned-beef sandwich on a hamburger bun (it’s against our religion), so we got the full sandwich (also $19.95, with the soup at $7.95).
We snuck a photo of the half-san on a bun from the table next to ours. Pretty weak.
The sandwich was big, as expected, but not among the better corned beefs we’ve known and loved — dry and tasteless. It comes on marbled rye (so much for good Jewish caraway-seeded rye, let alone double baked) and the house-brand mustard was bland. Likewise, the matzo ball was big and light, but the soup was really salty, indicating the lack of chicken-soup finesse. And the $29.15 (before tax and tip) left us even more unimpressed.
We also got a slice of cheesecake to bring back to the office. That did live up to its reputation. Everyone agreed: rich, creamy, sweet with a little tang, firm rather than full of air, with a soft crust. Redemption!
We’ll probably give Junior’s another chance in the breakfast or all-day-dining department, but so far, we’re considering it go-to place for a decadent dessert.