TV Restaurants

What Happened to Ben’s Best Gourmet Delicatessen After Food Paradise?

Closed verified

As of September 2026, Ben’s Best Gourmet Delicatessen has closed — confirmed via patch.com, June 2018.

Primary source
patch.com ·
Secondary source
Yelp ·

Last verified

What the source shows: News coverage from 2018 confirmed Ben's Best Delicatessen closed permanently after 73 years, and Yelp's listing still showed it as closed as of September 2026.

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What happened after Food Paradise?

The episode featured Ben's Best Gourmet Delicatessen's classic Jewish deli fare, including house-cured pastrami and corned beef served in a Rego Park, Queens dining room that had operated for 73 years. Ben's Best was a kosher-style delicatessen on Queens Boulevard, run by owner Jay Parker after he bought it from his father in 1984. Parker closed Ben's Best on June 30, 2018, according to Patch (2018-06). Parker said at the time, "I had every desire to continue the business through other hands," according to Forward (2018-06). Ben's Best had been a fixture of the Rego Park dining scene since the 1940s, and its closure left no old-school kosher delicatessens remaining in Queens, according to Patch (2018-06). Yelp's listing for Ben's Best still carried a permanently-closed label and was last updated in September 2026, according to Yelp (2026-09).

Featured on Food Paradise

Season / episode
Season 12, Episode 5
Original air date
Not confirmed
Episode title
The Meatier The Better
What was featured
classic Jewish deli fare at a 73-year-old Rego Park delicatessen
Role
Featured restaurant
Name on the broadcast
Ben’s Best Gourmet Delicatessen

Frequently asked questions

Is Ben’s Best Gourmet Delicatessen still open in 2026?

As of September 2026, Ben’s Best Gourmet Delicatessen has closed — confirmed via patch.com, June 2018.

What happened to Ben’s Best Gourmet Delicatessen after Food Paradise?

The episode featured Ben's Best Gourmet Delicatessen's classic Jewish deli fare, including house-cured pastrami and corned beef served in a Rego Park, Queens dining room that had operated for 73 years. As of September 2026, Ben’s Best Gourmet Delicatessen has closed — confirmed via patch.com, June 2018.

Is Ben’s Best Gourmet Delicatessen permanently closed?

As of September 2026, Ben’s Best Gourmet Delicatessen has closed — confirmed via patch.com, June 2018. We publish a closure only with a dated source behind it, and we say plainly when it has not been independently confirmed.

Where is Ben’s Best Gourmet Delicatessen located?

96-40 Queens Blvd, Rego Park, NY 11374. That is the address on the record as of September 7, 2026.

What season and episode of Food Paradise featured Ben’s Best Gourmet Delicatessen?

Season 12, Episode 5 of Food Paradise. The episode is titled “The Meatier The Better”.

Every status on this site carries a confidence label and a date, and names the source it rests on. Read the Editorial & Corrections Policy for what each label means and how quickly we act on corrections. The questions above are generated from this record's own published fields — we never publish a question we cannot answer from the data.

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Visit info

Address
96-40 Queens Blvd, Rego Park, NY 11374
Venue type
deli
Official website
None found

Businesses change fast. Always confirm directly with the restaurant — call ahead, or check its own current website or social media — before making plans around anything on this page.

Sources

  • patch.com — https://patch.com/new-york/foresthills/famed-bens-best-deli-close-after-73-years-rego-park
  • forward.com — https://forward.com/food/402883/bens-best-deli-is-closing-are-we-witnessing-the-end-of-the-jewish-deli/
  • Yelp — https://www.yelp.com/biz/bens-best-rego-park-2

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