"traditions don't change"

Canter's turned 80 this year. And to celebrate, the Fairfax Avenue deli is offering up a meal for 80 cents.

If you can make it there by midnight Tuesday, here's what you'll get for eight dimes: Thick slabs of corned beef sandwiched between two slices of mustard-slathered rye, a sour pickle, a dab of potato salad and a chocolate-chip rugelach.

How long the lines will be when you get there is anybody's guess. They started forming midmorning and stretched up and down the block well before the deal started at 4 p.m.

The family-run deli, which opened in 1931 in Boyle Heights, was ready for the onslaught with 5,000 pounds of corned beef on hand.

Canter's is a place that takes pride in staying the same. Its current location -- in the former Esquire Theatre -- hasn't changed too much since the family moved in back in 1953.

"We like to keep everything the same, exactly the same. Nothing has changed here. The decor is exactly the same," said Jacqueline Canter, a granddaughter of one of the deli's founders.

The traditions don't change either. The deli's been marking its milestones with similar meals at five-year intervals since it reached the half-century mark.