Over the weekend, the Times dug into the battle over the Guss' Pickles empire, which pits the pickle stand's owner Patricia Fairhurst against Andrew N. Leibowitz, who claims to have acquired the exclusive rights to Guss', along with its recipes, in 2002 for his own Guss' located in Cedarhurst, Long Island. Trying to force her to close, Leibowitz sued Fairhurst in February of this year and Fairhurst then counter-sued just last month, claiming, obviously, that the Leibowitz's menacing claims are false. It should be noted, too, that Leibowitz is the son of Steve Leibowitz, who runs United Pickles, which had supplied the LES Guss' with their raw cucumbers until this all went down.
While business is business, Leibowitz's inability to see the bigger picture -- that Guss' LES stand is a landmark-caliber institution and the irreplaceable lifeblood of his own store -- is nothing short of grotesque:
Not only has the lawsuit pitted pickler against pickler, it has also thrown into question the future of a Lower East Side institution as revered as Russ & Daughters food store and Katz’s Delicatessen. It has torn historic pickle alliances asunder. And it has devastated the surviving daughters of Izzy Guss, the original storied pickler supposedly known as the “Botticelli of Brine.”Obviously, those who mess with anyone related to the Botticelli of Brine are messing with Eater. Thusly, it is time to take action of two kinds. First, get thee to Guss' (85-87 Orchard Street); Second, for those who are customers of United Pickles, it's time for a good old fashioned boycott.
· Two Businesses in a Briny Battle Over Guss’s, the Pride of the Picklers [NYT]
