Noted menu items included cheese blintzes, potato pancakes (latkes), hot onion rolls, and split-pea soup.

Entertainers Bill Graham, Al Jolson, Fanny Brice, Marty Allen, Eydie Gormé, Walter Matthau, Elia Kazan, Max Gordon, Groucho Marx, and Alan King were all regular customers, while gangsters Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky frequented the Delancey Street location.

[6] In 1975, Jacob Harmatz's daughter, Judith Gethers, and her niece, Elizabeth Lefft, published The World Famous Ratner's Meatless Cookbook.

In 2013, the great-grandson of a Ratner's owner opened a "Jewish-style" with Jewish specialties like matzah ball soup, brisket, and hummus, as well as non-kosher food, such as pork sausages.

[7] The exterior of the Second Avenue Ratner's is briefly visible in two 1962 episodes of the TV series Naked City, "The Face of the Enemy" and "A Horse Has a Big Head—Let Him Worry!"

The distinctive red letters and font of the Lower East Side location is briefly visible during the race scene in Ready Player One.