Holy Schnitzel is opening inside a pick-up and delivery-only ghost kitchen near Times Square

Holy Schnitzel, the hand-breaded schnitzel chain, has taken over the space at 245 West 46th Street that Cattle vacated after closing up shop with little explanation. Cattle had only opened last fall, a glatt kosher smokehouse turning out wood-smoked brisket, ribeye and burgers, all packaged for delivery—because the address was never an actual restaurant.

The space near the Theater District is, in fact, a commercial kitchen facility called Picnic, and inside that one building sit over 30 separate food operations, almost none of them kosher. The concept is simple: you order through an app and the food either gets handed to you at a pickup window or sent out the door with a courier. There are no seats in there. For a stretch of midtown that runs on tourists, theatergoers and office workers who need lunch fast and dinner faster before curtain, a model built entirely around speed makes sense, and it leaves Holy Schnitzel as the sole kosher name on that entire roster.

As for the chain itself, Holy Schnitzel got its start in Staten Island in 2019, launched by siblings Sivan and Ofeer Benaltaba, who set out to make kosher fast food actually worth ordering. Nine locations followed: Borough Park, Crown Heights and Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn; Cedarhurst; Flushing; the Upper West Side; Roseland, New Jersey; and Hollywood, Florida. Times Square makes ten, and gives Manhattan its second Holy Schnitzel alongside the UWS original.

The menu should feel familiar to anyone who’s ordered from the brand before: the hand-breaded schnitzel sandwiches the chain is named for, a rotating bench of house-made sauces, burgers, wraps, salads, and mainstays like the Tony Special (grilled chicken, sautéed onions, peppers, jalapeños and spicy mayo) and the Holy Toasty (crispy chicken, grilled pastrami, lettuce, pickles sautéed onions, honey mustard and holy sauce).

There’s no opening date locked in yet, but we’ll be on the lookout.