Shops in Upper East Side

A family-run Italian food shop that opened on First Avenue in 1993 and has a butcher, a fish counter, a cheese case and a prepared-food line running the length of one wall. You can assemble a meal out of it in ten minutes and eat it in a park. It is open until nine every night of the week, which a grocery rarely is.

Daily, 8am to 9pm

A bookshop that has held the corner of Madison and 93rd since 1978, in a space small enough that the whole stock is within sight of the door. The selection is chosen rather than warehoused, which means fewer copies of more interesting things. There is a children's section at the back that the neighborhood treats as a fixture. Open seven days.

Mon to Sat, 10am to 6pm. Sun, 11am to 5pm

Nach Waxman opened this on Lexington in 1983 and it has only ever sold books about food and drink, which is somewhere around twelve thousand of them at a time. The staff have read them and will argue with you about which one you want. Out-of-print titles sit behind the counter rather than on the shelves, so ask. It closes at six and does not open on Sunday outside December.

Mon to Sat, 10am to 6pm. Closed Sunday

Abraham Orwasher opened this on 78th Street in 1916 and lived in an apartment at the back of it. The rye and pumpernickel that built the business are still sold over the same counter, alongside a later line of breads leavened with Long Island wine grapes rather than commercial yeast. It is a small shop with a short line and no seating. Buy a loaf or a babka and eat it somewhere else.

Daily, 7am to 6pm

Danny and Kenny Sze ran the fish counter at Zabar's for more than a decade before opening their own shop in 1990, and they have been slicing sturgeon and sable and nova to order ever since. It is a narrow counter on Third Avenue with a case at the front and a line that moves. Order a sandwich on a bagel and take it with you. The lobster salad is what most of the regulars are actually there for.

Mon to Fri, 8:30am to 6:30pm. Sat, 7:30am to 6:30pm. Sun, 7:30am to 5pm

Ferdinand Schaller opened this in 1937 after arriving in Yorkville, and the shop has been on Second Avenue ever since, selling bratwurst, liverwurst, bacon and the kind of mustard and pickles that go with them. Everything was made on the premises until 1960 and the counter still works the old way, which is that you say what you want and someone cuts it. Schaller's Stube next door puts a sausage on a roll if you would rather eat now than later.

Mon to Sat, 10am to 8pm. Sun, 11am to 6pm