Nick's Kitchen

Nick Freienstein was born in Huntington January 22, 1876. He was one of five sons and two daughters of Maurice & Elizabeth Fisher Freienstein. Nick was 12 years old when he dropped out of parochial school at SS Peter & Paul to take a job as a tobacco stripper at Reichard’s cigar Factory on Cherry Street. In the next 15 years, Nick worked many places around the town – at Joe Hegner’s Confectionery and the Peter Geizieichter and Stuart Lippman grocery store.In 1904, Nick Freienstein had resigned his position from Stuart Lippman grocery. He had been employed in the grocery business for about 16 years. The next thing the public knew, Nick made his appearance on the streets at night selling hamburgers. He had a stand at the corner of the courthouse square, which consisted of a push cart and a dim lantern.In the course of time, his hamburger trade was housed in a little ten by ten structure, which occupied a space under a stairway at the corner of Jefferson and Market streets. There he built a business for Nick’s hamburgers that provided him with the funds to move in 1908 to the present location of 506 North Jefferson Street. For the first time, he no longer cooked his food on a cart but had a kitchen.In 1929, Nick sold his remaining interest in Nick’s Kitchen to two local men, Paul Bir and Robert Davis. He then passed in November 1941. There are plenty of items on the menu at Nick’s, but there is one item that is a local hit. The tenderloin sandwiches are made with the same recipe Freienstein himself used and there are no plans of changing it. Featured on Food Paradise.