Beloved entertainer Dani Luv will hit the stage as NYC institution Sammy’s Roumanian makes a comeback: ‘I was waiting four years!’

One of New York’s most well-known mensches is getting his tuchus back on stage.

Dani Luv, the longtime in-house musician at Sammy’s Roumanian Steak House, says diehard fans and newcomers alike can expect the same old shenanigans when the famed Lower East Side restaurant reopens — four years after shuttering due to the COVID pandemic.

“I was waiting for four years! I would force them to take me back,” Luv, whose real name is Dani Lubnitski, told The Post this week after Sammy’s announced its comeback.

Luv made his debut at Sammy’s in October 1998 – fitting “like a glove to a hand” from that very first night –and quickly became synonymous with the location, where chopped liver is a delicacy and the hora is a nightly exercise.

For over 20 years, diners flocked to the basement restaurant on Chrystie Street for a chance to see Luv perform “Hey Jew” – a spin on the Beatles’ “Hey Jude” – as much as they did for the schmaltzy cuisine.

But Sammy’s fell victim to the pandemic and shuttered in 2021, which left Luv with free nights on his hands for the first time since he started at the basement restaurant.

“A lot of private parties,” the 67-year-old said of the four-year break. “COVID, you know, took about a year and a half, so no one  really worked too much.”

Even without Sammy’s, Luv still found plenty of places that wanted a taste of his signature fusion of musical comedy.

“The last two and a half years, a lot of private homes, country clubs did Sammy’s nights,” he said. “They would have chopped liver… the Romanian schtick, you know, reminiscing.

“But I missed performing inside the real institution,” Luv admitted. “Now, people say, ‘If [the new place] doesn’t look like a s–thole, we’re not coming!’”

It’s true: Sammy’s original dingy underground room – with its low ceilings and walls littered with photos – will be hard to emulate.

The new location on Stanton Street will open on April 22 with special seatings for Passover before kicking into full service in June, owner David Zimmerman told Eater.

“It will be different. But we’re covering the walls with pictures, we’re going to do the same thing,” Luv told The Post of Sammy’s new home, adding that the restaurant will be on the ground floor of a “very old-fashioned building.”

“It will be nice, old-fashioned like a Jewish grandmother’s basement,” he said.

When asked about his personal brand of melodic ribaldry, Luv said he drew his on-stage persona from the Jewish history of the Lower East Side and the five boroughs, as well as the “Borscht Belt,” the portions of the Catskills and upstate New York once filled with summer resorts.

“I love mingling with the crowd. It’s very ‘Manhattan,’ Jewish and non-Jewish,” he said of his act.

“Over the years, the restaurant became [half Jewish guests, half non-Jewish guests], which I love,” Luv told The Post. “You see Jews, Chinese, and African Americans all dancing the hora… it’s amazing.”

In addition to comedic takes on popular tunes (“The Girl From Emphysema” is another cheeky favorite), Luv spends most of his four-hour show serenading guests with classics from Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong.

Luv also did a DJ hour for the younger crowd that started flocking to the location over the last few years before it closed.

“Very different from a DJ at a wedding,” he explained. “I talk! I make them laugh, and they drink and they laugh and they sing all together.”

Luv’s on-stage quips are the stuff of legend – and he loves it when the audience talks back.

“One time I said ‘The more you drink, the better looking I get,’ and someone in the back yelled ‘There’s not enough liquor in the whole f–ing house!’ I was laughing for two hours!” he recalled.

Luv spoke to The Post from his native Israel but was all geared up to return for Sammy’s grand reopening in a couple of weeks.

“We’ll do the same thing, same schtick,” he told The Post of what diners can expect – though he added that he will not come back to his non-stop, six-night schedule, as in the past.

“Maybe someone else will do Monday, Tuesday, I’ll probably do Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday,” he said.

In addition to reviving a downtown institution, the return of Sammy’s will bring people together in a time of strife amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war and upticks in antisemitism, Luv said.

“Yes, yes, people are so much together,” Luv said of the restaurant’s power to unite the community.

“[In New York] you know, we have so many different religions and it’s such a melting pot,” he mused. “It’s great.”