Off to the Old Country
Tuesday, July 20th, 2010
Well amigos, it’s time to return to the roots. Back to Eastern Europe for me, as I leave for Romania and Hungary, reporting for a magazine to be named later. Should be fun. Hopefully I’ll find the lost temple of smoked meats. Or something.
Meet Gladis, Chicago’s counterwoman
Friday, July 9th, 2010Last week I wrote about Diana, the counterwoman at Brooklyn’s Mile End, who broke the schmaltz ceiling for women in delis who are slicing meats. I asked you to provide me with evidence of another woman with a knife in her hand and pastrami in her heart.
Now, Brad Rubin of Chicago’s Eleven City Diner has answered. With not one, but two counterwomen, who happen to be sisters. Below is Gladis. Her sister Maria also works behind the counter. I’ve asked Brad for her Maria’s photo too.
A big hand for these ladies. Keep them coming!
Toronto’s Smoked Meat Duel is Imminent
Wednesday, July 7th, 2010
A few years ago, the only smoked meat you could get in Toronto was the kind brought in from Montreal.
Then Caplansky’s entered the scene. Then the Stockyards started selling a pastrami sandwich. Then Goldin’s smoked meat appeared around town, and at the Free Times Cafe. Opinions and preferences began to fly. Each claimed their top spot. Their fans fought hard on the foodie blogs and message boards.
But now, the battle is going public. Because on July 25th, at 1pm, Caplansky’s, Goldin’s, and the Stockyards are bringing out the knives and the briskets, converging on the Wychwood Barns farmer’s market, and having an old fashioned duel for smoked meat supremacy.
The best part is that the proceeds will go toward the Stop, a wonderful organization combating hunger and malnutrition in the city, via education and advocacy in the kitchen and garden.
This is going to be huge. Get there early and get there hungry.
Where: Wychwood Barns, 601 Christie St. (Barn #1)
When: Sunday, July 25, 1 to 5 pm.
How much: Free. (Food and drink available for purchase; all proceeds go to The Stop.)
Is This the Only Counterwoman in a Jewish Deli?
Thursday, July 1st, 2010
Meet Diana. She’s a cool lady. Funky Rockabilly hair, a few tatoos, and mad mad knife skills.
For the past little while, Diana has been working at Brooklyn’s Mile End Delicatessen, slicing smoked meat by hand.
Rachel Cohen, the owner of Mile End, along with husband Noah Bernamoff, asked me whether Diana was the only female counterwoman in the deli business. I wracked my brain and am kind of stumped.
I’ve met about a dozen female delicatessen owners, such as Cheryl Morantz at Toronto’s Centre Street Deli, or the Markowitz sisters at Factor’s in LA. I’ve met hundreds of great deli waitresses. But I don’t think I have ever seen a woman slicing deli meat, either by hand, or on a slicing machine.
The world of countermen is very MEN centric. It’s knives and meat and big beefy hands, and is the last bastion of the deli business that’s segregated by sex.
So deli world, let me know, is Diana from Mile End the Sandra Day O’Connor (America’s first female Supreme Court justice) of the deli counter? Has she shattered the schmaltz ceiling? Should we start minting coins in her honor?
Or are there other pioneers out there, now, or before?
Let me know.
Fresser’s Parks Forever
Friday, June 18th, 2010
More bad news. Fresser’s, the LA Pastrami truck, has decided to ground its wheels, and stop rolling out the meat.
The news came at the start of May, but I just heard about it now. Here’s what they wrote on their blog:
After much thinking, conversation, and soul searching we have decided that the time has come to close our doors. We enjoyed our time on the Fresser’s truck serving you our delicious pastrami. We’ve met a lot of wonderful people and made new friends along our journey, and we will miss you all. Thank you all for your support!
Please join us to say farewell at beautiful Calamigos Ranch in Malibu. This will be our last event and all are welcome! We will be there with our friends Flying Pig, so come have a bite, a glass of wine, and help us give the truck a proper goodbye!
Thank You,
Jessica Ary & Scott Helberg
Anyone out there try Fresser’s when they were in business? Share your stories with us.
New Jersey’s Goodman’s in New Hands
Wednesday, June 16th, 2010A quick note for you Garden State deli lovers. The venerable Goodman’s of Berkely Heights, NJ is under the new ownership of Don Parkin, a committed deli fanatic. Don’s assured me that he’s keeping faithful to the tradition of the Goodman family, who remain regular customers. Considering this place has been around since 1943, it’s a gem worth preserving, and we wish Parkin the very best of luck.
Here’s a look at Goodman’s back in the day:
Goodman’s Deli & Restaurant
goodmansdeli.net
400 Springfield Avenue
Berkeley Heights, NJ 07922
Ph: (908) 898-0900
Fx: (908) 898-0905
London’s Bloom’s is finished…bollocks!
Friday, June 11th, 2010
Well, if this isn’t the worst week on Save the Deli, I don’t know what is. First I write about Ottawa’s Nate’s closing. Then about Joan and Ed’s. But what comes next is surely the worst…
Our UK correspondent, Anthony Silverbrow, sent me a note this morning, informing me that London’s flagship kosher delicatessen, Bloom’s, has closed down. This is an immense tragedy for salt beef lovers. Silverbrow pointed me to an article in London’s Jewish Chronicle, which confirmed the end of Bloom’s:
Bloom’s restaurant closes in Golders Green
By Robyn Rosen, June 10, 2010
Bloom’s restaurant in Golders Green has gone into liquidation.
It has been closed since Sunday and a notice on the door asks creditors to contact insolvency firm David Rubin and Partners. A creditors’ meeting is being held on June 25.
The iconic Bloom’s restaurant in Whitechapel opened in 1920 and closed in 1996. The Golders Green branch opened in 1965 and was renovated in 2007. An Edgware outlet launched in 2007 lasted only a year.
A Bloom’s waiter, who asked not to be named, said he had not been paid for six weeks - and some colleagues had gone unpaid for longer. “I turned up on Sunday and talked to the manager who said it had closed down. Some staff had refused to work because they weren’t being paid so they had to shut. I just had to go home after that.”
Rabbi Jeremy Conway of the London Beth Din kashrut division said: “Bloom’s has flown the flag for kosher restaurants for the best part of a century. We are saddened to learn of its demise.However, we must see this sad news in the context of the constant growth of the kosher restaurant scene in London. There are now some 15 kosher establishments lining the block for so long dominated by the Bloom’s emblem. The ever-increasing number and variety of kosher restaurants is exciting and testimony to the vitality of Jewish life in London.”
Jonathan Tapper, the last link with the Bloom family, said the closure was “very sad and the end of an era. But it’s nothing to do with the family since the business was sold. It’s a shame that the name could not continue.”
For most of the 90 years, Bloom’s was the best known kosher delicatessen in London, and likely outside North America. It began in the hardscrabble east end, on Whitechappel St, center of the garment workers, and the area where London’s Jewish immigrant population settled in the same way they did in New York’s lower east side. Run by Morris and Rebecca Bloom, Lithuanian immigrants, it was a gathering spot for housewives, boxers, bookies, dockworkers, garmentos, gangsters, and others craving hand carved salt beef sandwiches. Yet its fame reached beyond the community, introducing deli to Brits of all creeds and classes, and making salt beef a nationally recognized institution. Celebrities and royals rubbed elbows with rabbis and cockney street toughs. Its fame was on par with Katz’s, and it was renowned for having the rudest waiters in all London.
Much of the East End was heavily damaged during the Nazi Blitz, and many Jewish families moved up and out to the city’s north end in the decades following the war. The suburb of Golder’s Green became London’s New Zion, with a high street boasting delicatessens, bakeries, and other smart shops, close to row houses with proper gardens. Bloom’s opened an outpost here in 1960, though the original Whitechappel location survived until a kosher inspection scandal forced it to close in 1996 (it’s now a Burger King).
I first visited Bloom’s back in the fall of 2002, with my parents, and my mom’s elderly aunt Betty, who is still kicking and kvetching in her 90’s. It was hardly the best deli meal I hate, and the waiters were indeed as rude as their reputation, but it was an iconic institution nonetheless. But things were sliding. Customers were aging and dying off. The food had been outsourced, and the salt beef wasn’t what it once was. In 2007, when I visited it last, the family had opened another outlet in Edgeware, the next suburb up the line, but it didn’t last too long. They renovated the Golder’s Green store, made it more funky, but it was just a change of window dressing.
And so Bloom’s passes like so many others into the night. Could it have been saved? Perhaps. The deli business is a game of long term strategy, and somewhere along the line, the owners made some crucially wrong moves. The focus shifted away from the food and the tradition. Quality decreased for one reason or another. Or perhaps there just wasn’t room anymore for London’s oldest Jewish delicatessen.
Either way, we hang our heads in shame, and mourn its loss.
More tsuris: Joan & Ed’s in Framingham to close in less than two weeks
Thursday, June 10th, 2010From one deli closing to another, oy. This time in Framingham, Mass:
Joan & Ed’s Deli to close forever after Father’s Day
By Charlie Breitrose/Daily News staff
MetroWest Daily News
Posted Jun 10, 2010 @ 10:56 AM
Last update Jun 10, 2010 @ 12:05 PM
NATICK —
A culinary icon in the Golden Triangle will shut its doors for the last time on Father’s Day, the owners of Joan & Ed’s Deli announced today.
Ed and Joan Sanderson have run the deli in the area along Rte. 9 at the
Framingham/Natick line for 33 years, but have decided it’s time to retire.
“We hate to call it quits but there comes a time to hang it up,” Ed said.
“We will be closing (at the end of) Father’s Day, June 20, so we can give people time to come by and say goodbye.”
Joan and Ed’s is the longest running restaurant in the Golden Triangle,
besides Ken’s Steakhouse, Ed said. The Sandersons prided themselves in serving many products made right there in the restaurant, such as pastries, knishes, briskets and kugle.
The deli started in Framingham’s Shoppers World in 1977, and then moved
across Rte. 9 and across the town line to Natick’s Sherwood Plaza (now near the Christmas Tree Shops) in 1994.
Running an independent restaurant has become more difficult, too, Ed said.
“It’s harder to fight the battle with the economy, with insurance, government programs, health insurance and regulations,” Ed said. “Years ago when we first opened, there were dozens of delis, now can count on one or two hands.”
This morning, the Sandersons told their 32 employees about their plans to
close the deli. The couple, who lives in Framingham, plans to spend more time
with friends and family, and enjoy their home in Maine.
Go while you can.
Joan & Ed’s Deli Restaurant
www.jedeli.com
Sherwood Plaza - Route 9 East
1298 Worcester Road, Natick, MA 01760, United States
(508) 653-4442
Nate’s in Ottawa finally closes
Tuesday, June 8th, 2010Back from my honeymoon and cleaning out the inbox. It’s not the best way to start my new married life as a deli lover, but I did come across some sad and important news relating to the final days of Nate’s deli in Ottawa. I’ll let the Ottawa Citizen take up the rest of the story:
Nate’s Deli closes its doors after half a century
By Jennifer Green, The Ottawa Citizen May 25, 2010
OTTAWA — As the fluorescent lights went dim and the lineups finally diminished, the staff at Nate’s Deli on Rideau had nothing left in them but sore feet and sighs. The Ottawa landmark had closed for good on its 50th anniversary.
“We made it,” said Tony Paolino, leaning on the counter where he has sliced and served smoked meat since 1979. “These last few weeks have been crazy.”
Ever since word got around that Dave Smith was hanging up
his apron, customers have been streaming into 316 Rideau St., getting that last smoked meat, wishing the staff well.
Etna Greening — her intravenous line tucked into her purse beside her — was enjoying a final Reuben at 7:40 p.m., just 20 minutes before closing. Against her doctors’ advice, she left the hospital for one last sandwich at Nate’s. “It’s so damn good.”
Dave Smith, in a white T-shirt, apron, and his Order of Canada pin, leaned back, exhausted, as Maureen and Emile Arial made their way out. They had dated at the deli and now, years later, they had to come back to say goodbye for one last dinner. Of course, Smith ever the host, gave them both great hugs.
As waiter Blake Robertson slid her order in front of one woman, she said to him: “It’s so sad. Where will I get my smoked meat?”
“Sad! I’m unemployed,” he replied with a laugh. “I got a bigger problem. Where am I going to get my rent money?”
Robertson had worked at the place on and off since he was 13 or 14, starting by washing dishes.
Now, at 52, he’s going to take a few weeks off, drive around in his new convertible, and then look for work.
Not everyone lasted that long. One guest book entry recalled: “I was an employee in 1975. Maybe one week.”
Smith said younger wait staff often struggled. “It was hard for them to understand the menu. The knishes and the latkes. They didn’t know what they were.”
READ THE REST OF THE STORY HERE
CHECK OUT THE PHOTO GALLERY FROM NATE’S FINAL DAYS HERE
photo credit: Christopher Pike
So long Nate’s. You’ll be missed dearly.
Jewish Star: Kosher Subways hit roadblocks
Thursday, May 13th, 2010
A few months back, someone interviewed me about the significance of Subway opening a kosher store. Now, someone interviewed me on the significance of Subway closing a kosher store in Queens (different location). I personally could care less about Subway, one way or another, but some of you have strong opinions on it. Is kosher Subway a force for good? Or evil? Or meh?
In a story from the Jewish Star, of Long Island:
Kosher Subways hit roadblock
By Michael Orbach
Some latter-day Biblical critics have suggested that Jews and deli may have been the 11th Commandment. Broad generalities aside, given the Jewish fondness for pastrami on club and its sandwich siblings, who would think that a kosher Subway franchise in a heavily Jewish neighborhood could be a bad idea?
Alas, reality is bitter. Two kosher versions of the national restaurant chain have failed in this region. A Subway on Ave. J in Midwood, blocks from the real subway, closed months ago; the other, on Central Avenue in Cedarhurst, shut last month.
“A lot of that is related to our inability to take advantage of the economies of scale,” explained Les Winograd, a spokesman for Subway. Each restaurant is individually owned but franchisees tap into the collective buying power of 23,000 stores in the U.S., said Winograd. That is of limited value to kosher stores.
“With kosher locations we have to source kosher products from suppliers that are in the region, and so they only might be providing food for a very small number of locations,” he said. “Also, for a kosher store to be operating, it has to follow local rabbinical supervision and go to a different supplier than one in another area.”
The store’s owner then goes on to blame the local kosher authorities for ruining his business, and the Vaad tosses the blame back his way. But there’s more interesting stuff further down, about the failure of kosher fast food outlets worldwide:
“I think it was a fad,” Krevat said of a kosher Subway. “When we landed in Israel the first place my daughter wanted to go was Burger King. It’s a forbidden fruit. That will get you trial but unless you can deliver a fair product at a fair price, it isn’t going to last.”
As it happens, Orgad Holdings, which owns the Burger King franchise rights in Israel, announced this week that its 55 locations would become Burger Ranch restaurants this summer.
My own opinion? I really don’t think the fate of Subways make any difference in the greater Jewish food story. It has nothing to do with our traditions, our flavors, or our communities. It’s just business. Brought in, made kosher, and then just trying to survive like everyone else. There’s a lot of people in the kosher world who think that fast food style service, operations, and franchises will save kosher delicatessens. They all realize that there’s no magic answer. At the end of the day, people will go to a kosher Subway (or McDonalds, Burger King, etc…) the first time out of curiosity. But to get them to come back, you have to serve good food for a price that people are willing to pay.
