People really miss Stanley J’s potato salad. Here are two ways to recreate it.

When we asked readers what recipes they wanted most from Lexington restaurants no longer open for our Dining with the Past series, one consistent favorite came up over and over again: Stanley J’s Deli.

People really miss that potato salad.

Like DeSha’s cornbread, Brooking’s chili and Atomic Cafe’s rum drinks, Stanley J’s potato salad is legendary.

The restaurant at 3101 Clays Mill Rd. closed in September 2011 after more than 20 years serving fabled sandwiches and the kind of homemade sides that people bought by the quart to take to gatherings or stick in the freezer. On closing day people waited in line for one last batch.

The deli was started by Stanley Joseph Tarnofsky in 1989 with then-wife Carol Codell. Stanley died in 2005 and his children kept it going for six more years before they began pursuing other careers.

Interestingly, the deli’s Facebook page is still alive, and people periodically go there just to leave mournful posts. Often about potato salad.

We researched our recipe archives and found that in May 2002, longtime Herald-Leader food writer Sharon Thompson did a big story about the joys of potato salad and she included a recipe from Tarnofsky.

Not THE potato salad recipe, though. “Stanley would always say, ‘It’s close to this,’” Thompson said recently. But he kept exact details under wraps.

The version he gave her includes sweet potatoes and garlic.

Which are most definitely not in the version that fans rave about. That one, according to a photo one fan shared on the restaurant’s Facebook page of the label of a container, had only seven ingredients: Red potatoes, mayonnaise, sour cream, salt, pepper, green peppers and green onions.

Luckily, the Lexington food blogger behind “Food, Friends, and Memories” shared a recreated recipe in 2011, just after the deli closed, that she says fooled even her husband after six trial run batches.

So here are both recipes. Make them, taste them, tell us what you think. (Both of these make quite a bit of potato salad, so you might need to plan a get-together or scale the ingredients back.)

From Food, Friends and Memories blog

This story was originally published April 21, 2022 at 6:00 AM.

Janet Patton

Lexington Herald-Leader

859-379-5233

Janet Patton covers restaurants, bars, food and bourbon for the Herald-Leader. She is an award-winning business reporter who also has covered agriculture, gambling, horses and hemp. Support my work with a digital subscription