📜 Origin story
Who Invented the Reuben Sandwich? Omaha vs New York
Two cities, two men named Reuben and one sandwich. The New York story is older, but the oldest menus that name a Reuben sandwich come from Omaha.
Omaha and New York both claim it. Omaha credits a 1920s poker game at the Blackstone Hotel, where grocer Reuben Kulakofsky asked for corned beef and sauerkraut. New York credits deli owner Arnold Reuben around 1914, though his sandwich had no corned beef. The earliest menus found that list a Reuben sandwich are from the Blackstone, in 1934 and 1937.
The Omaha story
In the 1920s, hotel owner Charles Schimmel hosted a Sunday night poker game at the Blackstone Hotel in Omaha. One regular, Reuben Kulakofsky, ran a grocery store. As Bernard Schimmel's granddaughter, Elizabeth Weil, tells the family story, Kulakofsky asked for a corned beef and sauerkraut sandwich, and Charles's son Bernard, who had trained as a cook in Switzerland, added Swiss cheese and dressing on rye and grilled it.
The sandwich went onto the hotel's coffee shop menus. In 1956, a waitress entered it in the National Restaurant Association's sandwich contest, and it won. The Kulakofsky family tells it differently: they say Bernard only sent up a deli platter and Reuben built the sandwich himself. Omaha now marks March 14 as Reuben Sandwich Day.
The New York story
Arnold Reuben ran a well-known deli on East 58th Street in Manhattan where theater crowds ate late. Food historian Andrew Smith argued, in a letter to The New York Times and emails to Weil, that Reuben created the sandwich around 1914, for an actress said to have worked with Charlie Chaplin.
The trouble is the filling. That sandwich, sometimes called the Annette Seelos Special, was ham, turkey, cheese, coleslaw and dressing, with no corned beef or sauerkraut. Smith also found a Reuben's menu item with corned beef, Swiss, mustard and coleslaw on toasted rye, named for an actor rather than the owner. Close, but still not a Reuben.
What the menus say
Smith asked for a menu that named a Reuben sandwich before 1941, the year a cookbook by a New York author printed one with rye, Swiss, corned beef and sauerkraut. Two turned up. According to Weil, the Douglas County Historical Society found a 1934 Blackstone dining room menu with a Reuben at 40 cents, and the Nebraska State Historical Society found a 1937 coffee shop menu with one at 35 cents.
Smith conceded those were the earliest references he knew of to a specific Reuben sandwich. That supports Omaha's claim to the name. It does not settle who first put corned beef, kraut and Swiss together, which is why the honest answer is still that both cities claim it.
Russian or Thousand Island?
Even the dressing is disputed. Weil's 2013 New York Times telling says her grandfather mixed Thousand Island into the sauerkraut; her 2016 Saveur essay says Russian dressing. Both are mayonnaise and ketchup based, and National Geographic notes Russian is the spicier one.
Our Reuben sandwich uses a hybrid of the two and griddles it in butter. For a crowd, our sheet-pan Reubens toast four at once, and our homemade deli corned beef makes the meat from scratch. More from the family is in our corned beef hub.
Questions people ask
Who was the Reuben sandwich named after?
It depends on which city you ask. Omaha says Reuben Kulakofsky, the grocer at the Blackstone poker game; New York says deli owner Arnold Reuben.
When did the Reuben become famous nationally?
Accounts point to 1956, when the sandwich won the National Restaurant Association's sandwich contest after a hotel waitress entered it. By the middle of the century it was also a fixture in New York delis.
What is on a classic Reuben?
Corned beef, Swiss cheese, sauerkraut and Russian or Thousand Island dressing on rye, grilled until the cheese melts.
Parts of this history are disputed. Where sources disagree, we say so.
Sources
- Elizabeth Weil, "Who Really Invented the Reuben?", Saveur, September 6, 2016
- Stephanie Butnick, "The Origin of the Reuben Sandwich," Tablet, June 10, 2013
- Rachel Ringler, "The Reuben Sandwich Probably Wasn't Invented Where You Thought It Was," The Nosher (My Jewish Learning), August 7, 2019
- Zoey Goto, "What is a Reuben sandwich? The story behind the iconic deli staple," National Geographic, June 23, 2026
- Wikipedia, "Reuben sandwich" (used as a lead to sources)
More food facts
Cook it
Reuben Sandwich
Corned beef, Swiss cheese and quick-cooked sauerkraut on rye with a Russian-style dressing, griddled in butter until the bread is golden and the cheese melts.
Sheet-Pan Reubens
Four Reubens at once in 30 minutes: quick sweet-and-sour cabbage instead of sauerkraut, a mayo-mustard spread, deli corned beef and Swiss on rye, baked on a preheated sheet pan so they toast without flipping.
Homemade Deli Corned Beef on Rye
Cure your own brisket for six days in a salt, sugar and pink curing salt brine, simmer it in a low oven, then slice it thin, steam it and pile it on rye with deli mustard.
Pastrami on Rye, Inspired by Katz's
Inspired by, not official: store-bought corned beef soaked to pull out salt, crusted with cracked black pepper and coriander, smoked low, finished in foil to 203°F and hand-sliced onto rye with mustard, the way Katz's Delicatessen serves it.
Corned Beef and Cabbage
The Irish-American St. Patrick's Day dinner: flat-cut corned beef braised low and slow in the oven, then cabbage wedges, carrots and red potatoes simmered in the strained, buttered cooking liquid.