Original subtitles

Applesauce.

Okay.

How many case of applesauce?

- One. - One?

Perfect. Nice short ribs.

Okay, good.

All right, so listen, what've we got here?

Where's the fine noodles?

Hey, come on...

What is it, 5:30, come on.

People see the glamour.

This is not a glamorous business.

It's how we make a living and put food on our table.

That's great.

I know what I'm eating for lunch.

Okay, so you go see Victor, have breakfast.

Get something to eat. No problem, you got it.

- What makes a good deli? - Pastrami.

Very lovely chicken fat.

Soups.

The pickles, the peppers, the sauerkraut.

- Flanken. - The coleslaw, the potato salad.

The bursting flavor of that incredible juiciness

of that hot dog, oy, it was sexual.

The smell has to hit you.

The second you open the door.

Preferably half a block away.

It depends on the guy who runs it.

That's the whole key.

If they greet you and there's a personality there,

it means a lot.

Now listen, make sure everything

is nice and clean and sweet, okay?

Home-made potato pancakes.

My boss is crazy.

He put this on, he's only here two weeks!

Ta'am... which means flavor.

Your meats have to be fantastic.

Be careful on the slicing machine.

Don't give a customer half your finger.

Your rye bread has to be fantastic.

Your mustard has to be fantastic.

The great deli sandwich is simplicity at its finest form,

which is the hardest thing to achieve.

Make sure it's the same quality every time they come in.

You have to stay with the times.

At the same time you can't lose

your core menu.

This is our kishke, okay?

Giving a product that you can't get any place else.

Deli should be crowded.

An empty deli is a sad day.

This is going to table number six.

- All right, I got it. - Okay?

A deli is hands on.

It can't be run like Burger King or McDonald's.

Blintzes, pancake, noodle kugel, okay?

All right, get out of my window, come on.

Delicatessen is nuance.

If something is off, how do you fix it?

To recognize it.

Hey, who's cutting the sturgeon?

Don't put so much pressure on the knife.

A little less pressure, so it's got bigger slices.

I don't like that.

The rules are simple.

Buy good food, prepare it well,

but above all, be a mensch.

- All right, how we doing guys? - We're doing great!

Do we have enough food for... to watch the game?

You betcha!

Did you have a good yuntiff?

- It was wonderful, thank you. - Good, I'm glad.

- How about you? - Oh, I had a wonderful yuntiff.

Good. It's always nice to go to shul

and relax a little bit.

I first knew I was going into the delicatessen business

when my grandfather saw me in a booth at eight years old,

and he said, "Listen, you're old enough.

It's time to make a living," and threw an apron at me.

And I listened to him.

He was my grandfather, you don't talk back to him.

You grab the apron, and I put it on,

and I went in the back and I was helping him core out cabbage.

One cup borscht!

Clean up that plate.

Clean up that plate, that's messy.

I'm third generation in the delicatessen business.

My grandfather had the first delicatessen restaurant

on Broadway called the Rialto delicatessen restaurant.

And he opened that up in the height of the Depression.

And they were told by Walter Winchell...

In fact, he wrote it in a column, he said

that it was either going to be a fantastic success,

or one of the worst sideshows Broadway ever saw.

Ziggy was so close to his grandfather.

It was like Mutt and Jeff all the time.

He would prefer to spend time with his grandfather

in the deli than he would with a lot of his peers.

I would say that my grandparents

were his best friends.

And they made him one of them.

My Aunt Gusta, she used to make blintzes,

but the blatlech was too thick.

And they were like a stein, like a stone.

Since he was a little kid,

he's been an 80-year-old Jew.

Like, my mother used to call him the displaced sperm.

That he came out in the wrong generation,

because he sounded like he got off the boat

on the Lower East Side at the turn of the century,

and that was it.

My grandparents spoke Yiddish.

They were Yiddish, my grandfather was from Hungary,

my grandmother was from Cenowisz, Romania.

I saw my grandparents every day

and they started speaking Yiddish and I joined in.

And my grandfather says, "Das ist mein Kind. "

This is my child.

I liked speaking the old language,

'cause I kind of felt that I was kinda in this club.

And you know how people have all these contemporary friends.

My contemporary friends were like, you know,

70, 60, 80.

My grandfather used to say, there's just so much you need.

You can wear one pair of pants at a time,

drive one car at a time...

How much does somebody need?

The deli is a bubble.

The rest of the world goes, but you're in this, this world.

You know, the modern day of Isaac Bashevis Singer world.

That's the way I live, you know, that's the way I live.

The first delis

in New York and in America

began to appear on the Lower East Side

at the very end of the 1840's

and the beginning of the 1850's.

This coincides with the beginning

of the great German migration.

So for the homesick German

longing for a taste of bratwurst

or knockwurst or Westphalian ham,

pumpernickel bread,

the place to go was this new culinary institution,

the delicatessen.

The first Jewish delis

were German-Jewish delis.

They were the counterpart

to establishments that sold pork products.

The new Jewish migration,

Russian and Eastern and Central European Jews

that began to arrive in the U.S.

in the 1880's and 1890's were culturally

really quite distinct

from their German co-religionists.

They did not speak German, they spoke Yiddish.

They did not live in cities, these were shtetl Jews,

and when they arrived in New York

they essentially discovered the delicatessen.

This was not a food institution

with which they were familiar.

Many of the main early people

who ate deli

were people who worked in factories and sweat shops,

who could pick this stuff up.

It was fairly cheap, it was... tasted good.

A sandwich and a pickle was basically a meal.

And basically fast food.

Delicatessen was more than just food.

It was something that was for the soul, for the heart,

it changed your life.

It was something you deserved

after working your ass off all day.

When I was working with my pal, Abie Melnick,

he'd sell a watermelon slice for a penny a slice,

and I would be with him all day long.

And when the day was over,

we'd count the money, he'd give me a dollar.

And then at the end of the week,

the big reward was

he took me into a delicatessen and we had a sandwich.

And that was where I, uh...

I worked like a dog for that,

that, uh, pastrami sandwich.

In a certain way kids became

Americanized by eating delicatessen.

You know, we think of it as this ethnic institution.

But the the delicatessen was not ethnic to them.

And it was very different than your mother's cooking.

Mothers complained, "There's too much spice,

there's too much pepper in the delicatessen."

You're going to get indigestion."

Well, that's what the kids wanted.

And in time,

these Russians and Poles

and Romanians and Lithuanians

begin to open their own delicatessens

which take on this Yiddish flavor.

These were immigrants,

these were the children of immigrants.

This was a living that they could make.

And it was the idea to give their family

a better life and a better chance.

Max my father came over on the boat.

He was 19 years old.

He left Hungary and he came by himself.

Went to school to learn English.

My father had to get a job.

Somebody told him try a restaurant,

and that's what he did.

And he says it was good

because he liked to eat.

You know, when you come to this country, you have no money.

So he said, "Fine, I'll try it."

Grandpa Al, um, he was five

when he moved from Russia and came to Toronto.

He was amazing.

I mean, he had... He was so humble,

and such a hard worker, and so grateful.

Al met Nate Reimer at a famous deli

called Belesky's in Detroit,

and got the crazy idea to come out to California

and try to open up their own deli.

And in 1945 opened up Nate 'n Al's.

Everybody was saying,

you meshugganah?

What are you crazy, Hollywood's over there...

What's Beverly Hills?

I remember my grandmother explaining why Beverly Hills.

You know, 'cause it wasn't commercial, it was residential.

You know, he saw it as a place where he could be successful,

had a better opportunity to be grass roots

and service the, the community.

My grandparents were

from Russia and Poland.

They first came over, the kids were young,

they got the deli, which was canned goods

and mostly that stuff, and you would live in the back.

And there was a little stove and so on...

And that's how the family did.

And when they got a little bit better and they made

a little bit more money,

they, they... would move.

My father tells me a story that Hebrew National would

help get leases for places,

and give lots of credit to buy the product,

so my father looked in here

and he said, "Wow, this is..."

"This one speaks to me."

There was a delicatessen

on every single corner in New York City.

And you know, Mom would be in the back,

and Pop would be behind the counter,

and everyone was better than the next.

People would have an attachment to a deli.

Like they would say, "Oh, my delicatessen on my block

is better than your delicatessen on your block."

You know, everyone had that pride

of their delicatessen store.

There was no question of what

Ziggy wanted to do.

He was only waiting to graduate high school,

and then go to Culinary Institute of America

in Hyde Park.

When I was 15 years old,

my grandfather passed away,

and I took it very, very badly.

And my mom said "Look",

I'm going to take you to England."

My mother is English...

"To meet some of your cousins, you've never met them before,

So... to get your mind off

of what's going on with your grandfather."

I had taken him to England for a vacation.

And on our way to Chester,

which is a very big city,

my father said, "David, now that's one of the best"

culinary colleges, it's a Cordon Bleu college,"

he said, "that you could ever go in."

And Ziggy said, "Stop the car!"

I met the guy over there, the headmaster.

It happened to be the summertime, so he was there.

And I said, "Look, I'd like to be in your culinary school."

He says, "Well do you have any A levels or O levels?"

That's the equivalent of a high school diploma.

I said, "No, I don't."

Ziggy took over, he gave himself his own interview,

and when we walked out, he says,

"I'm going in there in the fall."

So I turned around to him and I said, "Listen..."

"Do you have a discretionary fund over here,

you know, for stuff like that?"

He says, "Yeah."

I say, "Well we could make

a nice donation to the discretionary fund."

He knew what he wanted,

and he excelled.

Ziggy has his own head,

and you can't tell him anything.

He knows what he wants to do.

Except for one thing that Gene didn't particularly

want him to go into the deli business.

I told him...

He, he wanted, he wanted him to go into fine dining,

and so when he graduated,

he... because he was the number one,

he got accepted into the Le Gavroche,

which is the Roux brothers.

That was the only three-star Michelin place at that time.

So I was on track to being

a fancy guy that my father dreamed of.

I mean, I cooked for the Queen of England

on more than one occasion.

But there was something missing...

for me.

And I went back to New York,

and they had the Deli Man's Association dinner.

I looked around the room,

and I saw all these 80-year-old guys,

70-year-old guys.

There was no young people in this room.

And I turned around to my Dad and I said,

"Who is going to perpetuate this food?"

It was like a light bulb that went on in my head,

and I said to myself, "You know, this is my calling.

Someone's got to take this,

and take it and continue it."

And then I turned around to my uncle and my dad and I said,

"I am not going to go back to England.

I am going to go back into business with you,

and we're gonna take this thing to another level."

If you would have told me

I would have ended up in Houston,

I would have said you're crazy.

The first incorrect assumption

that lots of Jewish people from the North make

is that there aren't any Jews in the South.

In fact, there were more Jews in the South

before the Civil War than there were in the North.

There were more Jewish generals in the Confederate army

than there were in the Northern army.

Jews started arriving in this part of the world in the 1500's.

Sephardic Jews from Spain fleeing the Inquisition.

The Jews wanted to be as far away from

the authorities of the church as possible,

and so they tended to gravitate to El Norte,

as they called northern Mexico and Texas.

In fact, one of the great urban myths of Texas Jews

is that flour tortillas were invented as unleavened bread for Passover.

This is a shtetl down here.

This is not like New York or Los Angeles.

I mean, we're very big, don't get me wrong,

we have a nice-sized Jewish population, but it's more of a shtetl,

I mean everyone knows everybody.

It's like "Deliverance" for Jews down here,

because everyone's related.

Do we have enough to eat?

- Yeah. - No?

Jews are tough.

You know, they're tough, they're fickle.

Pain in the tush.

Particularly when it comes to food.

Food's very important to Jewish people.

Before Ziggy, there were a few delicatessens,

and everybody would get all excited about them,

and we'd rush to them,

and you know within months... blech.

I would be glad to do it for you

after yuntiff, no problem.

And then Kenny and Ziggy's

arrived on the scene,

and wow, this was different,

there was a lot of buzz.

Everybody started flocking to it.

But they stayed.

If you want the most perfect

matzoh ball, that's perfect.

I think that everybody sensed

that the delicatessen wasn't a fake.

It was New York here in Houston, but it was real New York.

Beautiful, golden.

It's like smelling my Grandma's kitchen over here, right?

It's like beautiful, and you've got the aromas and everything.

I mean, I mean, you could be, you know, on Avenue A.

When you put that person,

that personality to the restaurant,

you wanna go because you want to see Ziggy,

in addition to having, you know, a great pastrami sandwich.

We call them the "girls,"

but it's Darlene and Judy.

They eat here every single day, practically.

I mean, and sometimes twice a day...

- Sometimes, twice a day. - ...they do.

But, but, they are definitely.

They're originally from Detroit so they know what good deli is.

They've known me from day one.

And let me tell you, they've seen me go through

more relationships than you can shake a stick at.

Oh, my God, how long do we have?

I mean, do you know how many people have tried to fix him up?

I've tried to fix him up! Eh. Blech.

I want you to look at this and make sure

that you agree with me on the portions.

In the art of love and business,

I think think Ziggy compromises

better with business than he does with love.

Well, thank you for your opinion. No...

I said, you know, "I know you want a Jewish girl."

She's gotta look like this, she's gotta...

There is no perfect person like that.

And uh...

I said... I've even said to him, I said, "Look at you, Ziggy."

"You're no Brad Pitt."

I said, "But you're lovable."

I've, you know, lived through everything from,

all of his dating experiences where, you know,

a million and one gold diggers, million and one...

Yeah, it just, girls who are dating for the wrong reason,

wrong personality types.

You know, his unfortunate break-up with his fiancèe

at one time which was very painful for him,

and very painful for the people around him that love him.

She knows that my mistress is the deli.

Even worse is when you have to

listen to it for the next year and a half.

That makes it more painful for me.

I don't see it happening, ever.

Ziggy is married to the deli.

And in order to do what you have to do

to commit yourself to a marriage,

you either have to divorce your wife or divorce your deli.

It is a tough business.

It's not a respectable, comfortable middle-class profession.

It's, it's, you know, a daily battle,

and, uh, you know, it's a great way

to lose a lot of money if you want to...

If you want to open one or invest in one.

Um, so, you know, only the kind of meshugganas go into it.

That's the best part.

Kind of makes you want to hora, doesn't it?

That's my baby.

People often ask me how I got into this business.

And I half jokingly say, "It's mental illness."

And this is our dishwashing section

over here.

These are called monkey dishes.

Every month I buy 300.

You know why?

'Cause they throw them out by mistake.

From the minute I come in to the minute I go home,

from 4:00 in the morning to 9:00, I don't sit down.

We call this place a beast.

I come home, a half-hour with the wife,

"That's it, I'm going to sleep."

You're on when everybody's off.

When everybody's out having a good time,

they're having it at your place, you're working.

My father checked in there, he went to the minyan

at 7:00 in the morning, and then a quarter to 8:00,

he opened up that deli.

There's so many things you have to do to get it started.

You gotta get the huge corned beefs into the steamer,

bring the beer from downstairs and bring it up to the fridge,

pickle the corned beefs...

The potato salad, he'd wash up like a surgeon,

Peel the potatoes, you'd chop it up with your hand,

and he went into that vat with his...

the mayonnaise, and... ooh!

My father was always working hard.

He used to work nights, he used to work weekends,

he'd work, you know, early in the morning.

I would never see him in the morning.

I knocked on the front door and my son answered,

and he yells out to my wife, "Mommy, Mommy!

There's a strange man at the front door!"

I never took my daughter to the first day of school.

I didn't see her the first day of school... ever.

Our family used to come in

and have their Friday night dinners here.

And what our children resented is that everybody

walked by and wanted to know what they were eating.

Where's Jose?

Is he at the cantina?

Your help, they can make you or break you.

You don't have that old-timer that...

used to work in a deli for 40 years.

All the countermen back then, they're wearing a tie.

They're wearing the white thing.

They're all like, you know, they were immigrants,

and they took pride in what they did.

I had a little kid working for me,

and I tried to break him in as a manager... I never had managers.

I was always there 24/7.

I left him alone one day.

This is five years,

working with me seven days a week.

I find him drunk laying under the counter.

That was the end of him, that was the end of managers,

that was the end of that.

You're dealing with items

that you have to prepare,

and the customer is very finicky and very particular.

If I go to a deli,

and I have a corned beef sandwich,

and I don't like the way it tastes,

I will never go back to that deli again, ever, not ever, not ever, not ever!

If they came to my house and begged me, I would not go to that deli.

Why anyone would want to go into this business, I have no idea.

Deli is 99% meat.

And it's really going up and up in price.

I look at the numbers from the deli and I cry.

For real, you know.

Our staff comes in and they say, "Why are you in such a bad mood?"

"Like, you know, I was looking at the books again today."

Our food costs are huge, and the net profits...

I wouldn't even tell you what I think they are.

If you were an investor, you would not be looking here.

I don't know if it's worth it anymore.

Only an idiot like me still hangs in there.

Okay, boys, I'll see you later.

I've been stressed out for the holidays,

like I usually get.

And I'm going over to see Mary,

who happens to be a doctor of Chinese medicine.

She...

is going to give me some needles to reduce my stress,

and some of my little aches and pains.

Just when you think, "You know what?"

You're not a youngster.

It's all over with,

you're not gonna get that opportunity..."

I go and I meet Mary.

Mary grew up as a Catholic.

But she loved Jewish culture,

and I met her in synagogue while I was doing this catering job,

because she was, you know, going to services

on Fridays and Saturdays

to see what Judaism was all about,

and to see if this was something she would like

to do on her own, like convert on her own,

and we became friends.

Yeah?

We don't have the challahs, there's no challahs.

No.

Holy shit! You know what?

Holy shit, I didn't fu...

I'm so tied away with this,

I didn't call all the challahs in.

Oh, my God, no-no-no-no.

Shit-shit-shit-shit-shit.

I'm gonna call now, okay?

All right, bye.

I'm fixing to go get poked.

- All right. - Man, no Milky Ways?

Milky Ways? No, but there's 3 Musketeers.

No, no, I'm not a 3 Musketeer type-of-guy.

And then you can do like a couple in the, like here...

- That's fine. - Whatever, and then you can

massage my feet at the same time.

Well, you just...

you're, you're taking this one to the bank, aren't you?

- Yeah! - You're really...

We're getting the full enchilada!

It's like now that we're here..

Can you tell I'm stressed today?

Baby, you're always stressed.

I take vacations, what are you talking about?

You do not, no.

There's always an excuse.

What, we're going on vacation, we're going to New York.

Yeah, so you can go visit bagel places, and delis.

Well...

It's a va... it's a busman's holiday, what do you want?

See, now that one's a good one.

That one opens up the sinuses,

and makes you feel good,

and you take a deep breath, and go...

Man, that challah thing, ooh.

We're not gonna talk about the deli right now.

You're supposed to relax.

I'm Ziggy's in-house doctor.

Yeah, if he... if his back is hurting,

I'm over, I'm working on his back.

If his stomach's hurting, I'm working on his stomach.

He has so much stress, and...

it's good that I'm helping him exercise,

and take care of his health,

and rest, and... it's a process.

Is it tender? Anything tender?

- What's wrong... Oh, my God. - Why'd you do that?

Yeah?

1-7-7-3.

Bueno.

Okay, one.

Gracias.

You're supposed to say, "De nada!"

When I started in the Yiddish theater

in the middle '30's,

it was a big industry.

All the shows broke at the same time,

and thousands of people were on Second Avenue.

And I used to watch that and get a thrill.

And they're all talking about the play,

good, bad or indifferent.

They didn't go home.

They went to restaurants.

And where did they go?

We had numerous delicatessens around.

Even the stagehands used to go to the deli.

One stagehand told me,

"I'm going to have a steak with a lining."

A steak with a lining?

"In the deli over there."

What's the lining? Garlic!

The one actor who I always remember

liking deli was Zero Mostel.

And Anne and myself were in a play called "The Good Woman of Szechwan"

at the Phoenix Theater with Uta Hagen.

And Zero was in the show, and during the lunch breaks,

since we were on Second Avenue and 12th Street,

he would go over to Katz's to eat,

and I would schlep along with him.

Well, Zero would always kibbitz with the countermen

and start doing jokes with them,

talk Yiddish with them.

They'd say, "Hey, Zero! How are you?!"

And he'd say, "Oh, everything's great."

I'm in a play down here on Second Avenue,

and Jerry Stiller's here with me with Anne Meara,

"and we're gonna have a pastrami sandwich."

The sandwich ended up, you know,

at least like at a half-a-foot big, and, um...

because the guy was catering to Zero Mostel.

"Jerry! Give Jerry a sandwich!"

He gave me a sandwich, he gave me three slices,

what can I tell you?

New York is the cultural,

spiritual homeland of Jewish deli.

And the deli grew from an immigrant ethnic food

to a trend that was really in the mainstream

in the '30's and '40's when Jews were starting to be accepted,

and not just viewed as kind of that immigrant outsider.

They were integrating themselves into the city,

into business, into entertainment.

And they introduced those signature tastes

to the rest of the country.

Okay, here we are.

This is my menu collection.

I'm out of shape.

I wanted to collect these menus because

I wanted to preserve deli culture and I loved it so much,

and I learned a lot from these people,

you know, by looking at their menus,

and saw dishes maybe that we didn't do.

Some of these menus

go back from the '20's to the '30's.

Like, you have Lindy's.

Leo Lindy was a fantastic operator.

Delis as restaurants became glamorous.

And I think one of the real ambassadors

in that sort of movement was Lindy's.

It was one of these delis that opened in the theater district

so theater people and comedians went to Lindy's

and they had these sandwiches named after them,

and deli acquired a kind of cachet.

There was like a kind of swinging quality, um,

to delicatessen.

This is an original Stage Deli menu when Max Asnas had it.

Max was a fantastic operator.

He was wonderful.

He had a sense of humor like nobody else.

They called him the Corned Beef Confucius.

The Stage was one of those delis

that really resonated with the American public.

And Max Asnas wasn't saying,

"Well, this is an authentic deli,

it has to be kosher. It has to have this..."

He's saying, "I want everybody's business.

I want everybody to love this.

So, you want cheese on your sandwich, sure.

You want ham?

Sure, not a problem," you know.

And people, I mean, you know, the Jews, a lot of Jews said,

"This is wrong, it has to be a kosher deli."

But by doing that, they opened the deli up

from this thing for us

that was something for everyone.

Stage was number one,

because Max Asnas was a movie star.

One block away from Stage Deli,

nobody knew we existed.

Until Max died,

and Leo Steiner came in with Milton Parker,

and made the Carnegie into what it is today.

Is that first cut?

A Reuben... it's now on white!

Leo Steiner invented the big sandwiches.

Instead of four or five ounces, ten ounces, 12 ounces,

They started making the sandwich like that.

And Parker was going nuts... He would say,

"You're giving too much, take some off."

So Leo said, "Okay," and put some more on.

He made it heavier.

The Carnegie Deli sandwich

is world-class.

You have to go for a jaw adjustment

after you eat the sandwich, because it's so big,

you really, you can blow your jaw.

But they were located on Seventh Avenue,

and all the comedians used to go there for lunch,

and stand out in front, and talk, and lie about their jobs.

Look at all the pictures on the walls,

- Gorgeous. - I got 4,000 pictures.

All the old comedians were Jewish.

They used to be here all the time, every single day.

Shecky Greene, Milton Berle.

Mel Brooks.

Everybody went for a frankfurter and a knish.

Today a frankfurter and a knish is $10, $12.

In those days, you're talking about a dollar and you get change.

When Leo Steiner had the Carnegie Deli,

one of his best customers was Henny Youngman.

When I say best customer, he never paid a penny.

When Henny went to the deli,

he would ask me to come along with other people

who were in the business maybe.

And while he ordered food,

uh, he'd start telling jokes.

They loved him,

because he did shtick with everybody.

Walking in, he says, "I want a table near a waiter."

He did two jokes.

He thought that was ample pay for his check.

He was the cheapest bastard in the history of the world.

The "deli" deli is New York.

Because it's... it's New York.

They can not compare with what we have in New York.

It's like George Burns said,

"Once you go to Newark, you're on the road!"

Tony knows how to speak Yiddish.

I wanna ask a question.

What do you say on Passover?

He says it better than Charlton Heston!

There's an atmosphere at a deli.

The waiters are part of a deli.

The waiter at our deli was a lover of chazzanus.

And he'd be delivering the food and singing to the people.

You know, it's like...

♪ Do you want your French fries well done, or regular? ♪

A lot of people who come in and don't realize

what they're getting themselves into.

We bring 'em to the table.

We say, "Okay, sit down, eat fast and get out."

Yeah, your waitress will bite you here.

- You know, you'll get a little... - If you deserve it.

You'll get bit.

Even if you've never been there before,

they're gonna talk to you like you're there three times a day.

Which is that mixture of lack of respect and affection

that you can only show with family members.

Yeah, you know, I treat the customers like mushrooms,

I feed 'em shit and keep 'em in the dark... no.

Have to know if you've ever had lox.

Lox is very salty.

You don't want it... It's terrible.

I never got what I wanted.

I used to say, "I'd like the pot roast..."

He gives me the chicken, I take a look,

the pot roast is so beautiful.

And that's been going on for years that way.

And I always sat at his table, like an idiot.

I was a masochist.

I think you have to really understand

what a, what a customer likes.

Do you guys want to do any potato pancakes or anything?

No, but we want noodles in our matzoh ball soup.

Sure, it comes with all that.

Some chicken noodle soup with dumplings.

You have to say to the customer,

"What do you like? Do you like lean?

Do you like juicy?"

You don't want to make a deli customer not happy.

Trust me on that one.

A deli customer is the worst goddamn restaurant customer

you could ever have.

You know, the old-time grandmother,

she says, "The matzoh ball soup is too salty."

I said, "Did you try it?"

She said, "No, it looks too salty."

I want the whitefish, but I only want it

between the sixth and seventh vertebrae.

You know, but I don't want to pay for the whole thing.

And... "What, $6.75 a pound?!"

Add this, take this out. Do this, make it dry.

I want a side cut this, I want it juicy but lean...

I want it schmaltzy...

I want my corned beef over the counter,

but I want it quarter-pound, shredded...

I don't want that piece, the good stuff's in the back.

The soup and coffee has to be burning hot.

The air-conditioning has to be freezing.

And you have to give away half the store for free.

"Honey, I've been eating corned beef since before you were born.

And your kitchen is not doing it the right way."

Right.

And then she went off in her walker.

Who hung out in delicatessens?

It was the same bums that hung out in the shvitz.

In the steam bath.

Which is bookies, and Jewish criminals,

and Jewish aspiring criminals

who tended to be synagogue presidents.

That kind of person.

Lou, nebbech,

couldn't really speak.

He could make one sound, and it sounded like this,

"Abbaaah, Abbaaah, Abbaah."

And Lou would walk in, he was a little guy,

sort of a, sort of a dandy, dressed up.

He had a pinky ring.

Tough-looking, tough, like built-solid,

and he'd look at my father and go, "Abbaaah."

So my father says, "Okay, corned beef on rye, Lou."

"Okay, got that."

He'd go, "Abbaaah."

"Oh, heavy on the mustard, all right, all right."

He's say, "Abbaaah!"

He says, "All right, Coke."

He says, "Abbaaah!" "To go."

Here we go,

we're gonna go into the walk-in.

Here we're pickling all the corned beefs over here.

It takes us about 45 days to make that.

We've also got some chicken soup on here.

That will take hours, the soup,

because we want to extract all the goodness

out of the vegetables.

He's grinding the chopped liver, right now.

We're putting eggs, we're gonna put onions,

and we're going to add schmaltz to it.

We're doing about two or three batches a day.

Matzoh and chollent are about the only

Jewish foods that may stand a chance of being indigenously Jewish.

Virtually every other dish that you can identify as Jewish

is developed out of foods that are being eaten

and prepared by the people

amongst whom the Jews were living.

They might have changed it and refined it in a way

that becomes recognizably Jewish.

So we're making kreplach.

Seasoned ground beef with garlic, onion and spices

in a noodle dough which we make nice and thin.

A lot of time in a lot of delicatessen stores

they make it too thick,

so all you're tasting is the dough.

Schmaltz is ultimately

what determines Jewish food.

Schmaltz means fat.

In Yiddish usage, unless you qualify it,

it's always assumed to refer to poultry fat.

It's the WD-40 of the kosher kitchen.

It does everything.

It's also the K-Y of the kosher marriage.

So chicken, of course, rules.

But that was partly because it was available and affordable

and easier to steal than cows.

This is an important fact.

That one kid can run off with a chicken.

You'd need at least three kids to steal a heifer.

One of the things about Jewish food,

it's not one of the subtler foods in the world.

Onions, garlic, and maybe a little salt.

You don't have to worry about, you know,

"Does it have a tarragon top note?"

Pastrami and corned beef, stuff like this

wasn't very widespread.

If you weren't from Romania,

chances are that you didn't know what pastrami was.

But the Jewish and kosher restaurants

in a place like the Lower East Side in New York

were disproportionally run by Romanians.

They began to serve this stuff.

And lo and behold,

you suddenly had Jewish food that had some taste to it.

A nice pastrami sandwich.

Ziggy's sandwiches are great.

But what I really think sets him apart is, is the kitchen food.

Those old Yiddish dishes

that not a lot of other delis make,

that he just, you know, his potted meatball,

his cabbage roll that just falls apart,

his noodle kugel that's like a soufflè.

I mean, it's just incredible.

You know, that type of Yiddish cooking

is very hard to come by in delis.

The success of Jews in North America is that

they have been able to be open and embrace a culture

in a way that they never really were able to in Europe.

And part of that is eating spaghetti and pizza

and Chinese food, I mean, Chinese is, like,

you know, it's up there, it's special.

But that, of course,

supplanted the diet of Eastern European Jews

and their descendants.

Now this is stuff that happened

to every immigrant group in the country.

The Italians, for example.

But the Italians still have a country that they come from,

and their relatives are still there,

and new immigrants from Italy can come over

and bring that taste of food with them.

The Jews don't have that. The Eastern European Jews.

There are no more significant populations

of Eastern Jews in Eastern Europe.

That was destroyed in the Holocaust.

So the Jewish deli is an immigrant restaurant

cooking from a place where immigrants no longer come from.

So you no longer have a source of the food there,

you no longer have a source of recipes.

Everything is being done from memory.

There also is a little bit...

I don't want to say this, it...

Because Jews have assimilated so much

in this American culture,

they've kind of turned back on their Yiddish culture.

They're proud of being Jewish, don't get me wrong.

They'll go to synagogue, they'll pray.

They'll, they'll be religious,

or, or, you know, still practice the religious traditions.

But the Yiddish culture,

they've turned their back on.

Maybe we can get them all in.

Got it?

Perfect. Now let it sit and set.

Smell it, folks... Smell the love.

Wouldn't it be great if you could smell it, and...

Hopefully they can smell it with their eyes.

When I cook, I cook with all my love

and my passion into the food.

Fire it up.

Ooh, that's good.

When I cook,

I feel my ancestors around me.

I do.

And it makes me happy.

When I smell that smell,

I feel my grandfather right next to me.

It's like of times past.

And that's what makes me happy, and that's what drives me.

What? You want me to add the whole thing?

- No. - Why?

Hey, listen, I... Listen, I know about you guys

and that cantina in the back there.

I'm gonna have Mike help me,

because he wouldn't have it any other way.

All right, Mike, dig in, come on.

Be honest.

That's good.

That veal is so soft.

Isn't that good?

You didn't lie, the rumors are all true.

Oh, my God.

That flavor cries of the old country.

You can taste the Diaspora.

You know what I'm saying, you can taste it.

I gotta tell you, I want to keep on eating.

I know, me too.

Maybe we should get another meal.

They've got a meal in the bag.

Oh, the deli,

it's really healthy food, let me tell you.

Just look at the waist size of all the people,

and you can tell that it's very, very healthy.

I promote it.

Let me tell you...

He actually has really good salads!

Hello.

- What's goin' on, buddy? - How are you?

- You doing all right? - I'm doing okay.

You ready to get started?

- Yeah. - Come on, let's go.

Now as I told you last time,

I have not worked out in a long time,

- I kind of went on strike. - Okay.

Because I used to have this Russian guy work me out.

And it was like a gulag.

When was the last time you ate today?

The last time I ate was probably about an hour ago.

Okay, perfect. And what did you eat?

Um, I had a bagel.

Just a bagel?

I had a bagel with some meat on it.

- And a little sour cream... - Some pastrami...

When was the last time you jogged?

Huh, that's a good question.

Let's go ahead and start.

Let me see where you're at, okay?

Let me know when you can't take it anymore.

Okay.

Five, four, three, two...

Good, walk.

Oi vey iz meer.

Walk, walk, walk, walk...

Catch your breath, let's go this way.

Okay, let's go to the steam room now.

Yeah.

Let's go, 15 reps.

One, there you go.

Two, there you go.

Three, four.

Now we're going to go down in that position

and we're going to hold it for ten seconds, okay?

Get a quick break.

Hold on one second. Hold on.

Yep, shake it out, shake it out.

Ready, let's get up again.

There you go.

And time, nice, good.

And we're up.

Now I'm going to stretch you out, just a little bit.

You better call Jeff from Jewish Funeral Services.

Do you have any pastries or anything?

- Do you wanna come around to the... - Sure.

I'll take an almond croissant, please.

She comes from a long line of eaters.

Yes... professionals.

Whoa!

- Sing, Poppy. - Does she do "Frère Jacques?"

♪ Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques ♪

My brother ended up

in the entertainment business.

My brother is very creative,

and he writes and directs movies,

that's what he does.

So we're going to meet

with our first cousin, Ross Elliott.

His father and our father were in business

for many, many years together.

55 years.

It's like, you'd come home, it was like,

my father for, you know, he worked.

- He worked hard. - He worked six days a week

for yeah, 45, 50 years.

My father beat his body up.

He's like the bionic Jew now.

They've replaced everything on his body, 'cause...

Everything from like, everything from his slicing arm,

they had to removed all the cartilage from that.

You're right, two... He's done two shoulders,

two knees, plus his heart...

- Yeah, everything, everything... - Everything.

It's hard work, but my father loved it.

Like my brother loves it.

I started working at the deli at about eight years old.

I actually have a scar on my hand

from the first day I ever worked

at my father's restaurant cutting pickles.

It just wasn't, it wasn't my bag.

I saw my father, that like,

when he came home, he had half day,

all he wanted to do was sleep, and not hang out.

And it just didn't seem, for me,

the life I wanted to have.

When I started there,

they kept moving me further and further back

toward the kitchen.

I think my dad started paying me not to go.

Although, I do remember something really bad I did once.

This customer kept sending a hamburger back

'cause it wasn't done enough.

"This well done dah-dah-dah."

And I brought it back, he's like,

"Oh, you just redid this one,

you didn't cook me a new one," and dah-dah-dah.

So finally, like on my way back the third time,

I just took it off the bun

and smeared it across the greasy wall.

Like the whole time and then put the bun back on.

I was like, "Here, sir. How do you like me now?"

But I do remember from early on.

Grandpa, everybody...

You know, I think it was clear

I wasn't gonna be the one...

And I think everyone was like...

"David," you know.

Is, is the guy to inherit the torch.

And I actually remember through the years,

certain things that never changed.

- Like the chopped liver. - You're right.

You know?

Once you get a great recipe, you just stick with it.

It's amazing how long those recipes have been going on for.

For years, I mean, and we've perpetuated it.

But the one that got missed,

the one that got lost, and I wish it didn't get lost...

I know what you're gonna say...

Grandpa's gravy.

Oh, my God, you're right. I don't know...

Grandpa's gravy, it got lost with him, and I have no idea...

I have been trying for years, you know, our gravy...

- No, it's true. - It's crazy.

Our gravy is close,

but it's missing something,

I can not figure out what it is, I have been trying.

The knowledge that we

have gotten from our father.

Can you get it out of a book? I suppose.

You can get anything out of a book, but, but...

When you grow up with something, it takes on...

It takes on so much more.

My father's name is on the door.

My father worked himself to death doing this.

When I first told him I was working 18-hour day,

he laughed at me 'cause he used to work 20-hour days.

It's my responsibility to my father and his name

to make sure that we're at least as good as he was.

I can't be any less, or else I get that,

that guilt in the back of my head.

We're here 67 years.

We've been here 66 years.

We have a name for 80 years.

You know, hopefully by some time we'll be at 300 years.

I'm the third-generation owner

of Manny's Deli in Chicago,

and, uh, pretty much been in the neighborhood since 1942.

Can you handle it or not?

Sure.

It's not a numbers game to us.

It's keeping ourselves happy, our customers happy,

and providing our family traditions to everyone,

and it's our blood, sweat and tears every day

going into the restaurant.

Danny did come here right after he graduated high school.

And said, "I really want to work now.

I really don't want to go to school."

And I said, "Forget it."

I said, "Get a degree and come back."

And four years later he was knocking on the door again.

The first time when we were here working was when

we were like ten, we were told to come

in on the Holidays, on the Jewish holidays,

at like 12:00 at night, and we're making potato salad

and coleslaw in the freezer.

When I was 12 or 13 years old,

I used to work summers.

After doing that, I told my dad, look,

I love delivering orders,

but I want to do something more, I want to cook,

I want to work the line a little bit.

And he goes, "What do you mean? You want to wear whites?"

Meaning, you know, white shirt and white pants.

I go, "Yeah!"

And I was the grill boy.

Sounds innocuous enough.

Hey, you make a hot dog.

Let me tell you this, there's four waiters on the floor,

customers lining out the door,

seven countermen, and all screaming at you.

"Four with! Three plain! Two this, this! Bah!

"Give me two knishes, one round, two square,

put some mustard inside the knish, do this!"

And I'm like, like I'm overwhelmed.

And I get home at night, I was asleep in bed.

And my mother comes into the room,

I'm screaming out,

"Joe, pick up! Four with! Two plain!

Seymour, pick this up, it's getting cold!"

And like, and my father was smiling, he says to my mother,

"This kid's got a future in this business."

Acme's been in my family

for four generations.

I know, we've been doing business

for three generation.

For, for three, I know.

And we've, uh, we've been in, uh,

on Gem Street this entire time.

The whitefish come in fresh.

Now where are the whitefish coming from?

The whitefish come from the Great Lakes.

We get fish from Lake Superior, Lake Ontario.

- Right. - So this is kind of cool.

He's feeding the fish through,

and it's taking off all the scales.

Oh, that's amazing, that's pretty neat.

On the other hand, you get scaleless fish.

What's amazing, can you imagine in your grandfather's days

or your great grandfather's days...

- Scraping it, yeah. - They had to do that all day long...

With the back of a spoon.

- Yeah. - Yeah.

So this is smoked whitefish,

that's getting ready to be packed.

Look at it, beautiful.

Look at all the whitefish.

You know, it's funny.

My grandfather used to tell a story,

and said if we ever make $100,000,

I'll be thrilled.

Now, we just want to run a successful business...

Can you imagine your great-grandfather, what he,

if he came here today and saw all this...

And he would not...

- He couldn't fathom it. - Would not believe it.

Look how quick he goes through it.

Beautiful.

And how do you break someone in?

You gonna say, "Okay, kid, here's a knife."

No, I think a lot of it is experience.

Um, like anything,

repetition, uh, you become pros.

Right.

There's a skill.

We cut fish European style.

That is from head to tail,

so we go all the way across.

And when you lift it up,

you can see an eclipse through it.

If you see my boys and me slice fish,

it's beautiful.

And when you taste it,

you've never tasted anything like it.

What's Nova?

Nova is Nova Scotia lox.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, it's just smoked salmon is all.

Dirk, party of two, please.

Hey, listen, I've got plenty

of macaroons in the back.

Listen, rather than tongs, get a slotted spoon

for the matzoh balls, it's better.

The tongs, they squash the hell out of it.

Would you like your balls squeezed?

- No. - I'm sure not.

Everything is flying, 'cause we're getting ready

for the holidays, for Yom Kippur.

This is Saul.

Just in case, I want any women

that you've knocked up,

I want to make sure that they know where you are.

Believe me, we can garnish

his wages ladies, it's not a problem.

We got Mr. Juan Picaz,

who keeps everything nice and clean.

If not, I'll kill him.

This is Herman.

Herman's my son, but he looks like his mother.

Yeah.

He cuts fish, he cuts corned beef, he cuts pastrami.

Jose watches everything, he really cares.

They care.

And so does Gisenia.

Gisenia, all... everybody does everything, right?

Come here, sweetheart. Look how gorgeous, this one,

like Miss America over here.

Moses came here, he didn't know any of this food.

But now he cooks it as good as anyone

on the face of the earth, or maybe even better.

Anybody that works for me is part of my family.

I am everything to these people,

and these people are everything to me.

So it's a two-way street.

My people make my business.

And there's nothing I wouldn't do for them.

- That's how they co... - Okay.

- Uh, $12. - $12?

Docedol... Aw, what is this?

His heart is like... huge.

Big heart.

That's good guy.

There used to be a dairy restaurant

on Second Avenue.

We all called it the Dirty Diaper.

And when Abe Lebewohl took over the place,

he didn't want dairy, he wanted delicatessen.

And he started the delicatessen in 1954.

And that's why I reached the age of 90,

because I ate at the Second Avenue Deli!

Abe was an amazing man.

He was born in Kazakhstan, which is a satellite of Russia.

In 1939, Stalin came into his town.

His father owned the biggest lumber yard in town,

and told his father you're a capitalist,

sent him to Siberia.

And in retrospect, the only reason they survived Hitler

was because he was... the father was sent to Siberia,

and they were on a displaced person camp.

So he basically came to America with a dollar and a dream.

And he never forgot his roots.

First of all, he had great recipes from Eastern Europe.

We used to make a thing called lungen stew,

which was the heart and the kidneys and everything.

And we'd have limousines, people who were the Holocaust survivors

and people who came over first generation.

That was their food, that was their food growing up.

And where could you find it?

So you found it at the Second Avenue Deli.

It's a link to the past.

They called Abe the Mayor of Second Avenue.

His offer that you couldn't refuse

was a bowl of soup, a chopped liver sandwich.

Uh... he would ask, "Are you okay, is everything all right?"

If a person didn't have money for food,

he would give them something to eat.

His only proviso, if he gave you something,

was that you didn't tell anybody.

And after Abe was shot,

people came in with their memories,

of a bar mitzvah that Abe paid for.

A wedding.

Got 'em through a tough time. Gave 'em a sandwich.

Took 'em aside, fed 'em.

He wanted to save the world one,

one sandwich at a time.

I think you're going to hear a lot of people say

he was a surrogate father, and, um...

one of the most caring and generous...

people.

Lebewohl was gunned down

on the streets of Manhattan,

around 9:30 Monday morning outside the bank

where he had gone to make a deposit.

Friends who knew Lebewohl for decades

say they can not believe he is gone.

Abe always felt an obligation

to the neighborhood, the restaurant.

You were the focus of his attention.

You were the most important person in the room

at that particular moment.

That's important.

That's what you want out of a restaurant or deli.

It's an inclusive restaurant.

You come here to be with people, to enjoy people.

If we don't like the people, we always pack it

so it leaks a little bit, so it gets all over them.

You know, we kill them a little bit.

I love my customers, and if they come in here

and they need a little help sometimes,

I take care of 'em.

They let me make a living from them,

and I never forgot that.

We're a part of the neighborhood.

A lot of people, they just know we're here,

and it's comforting for them to know that,

and, and they might only come once every six months,

but every time they come,

they feel it's home for them.

We're like the train station.

They can depend on us.

Let me have a large matzoh ball soup, please.

A large matzoh ball soup.

Oh, okay, so welcome home.

Thank you.

There's a customer from Florida, he comes in, his first stop,

coming and going, is here.

I can't think of any other restaurant that

is woven into the social fabric as kosher delis.

Remember.

There's a bris, you call us.

And by the way, we throw in the ceremonial challahs on us.

It's a mitzvah.

Barmitzvahs? We do the barmitzvahs.

Full catering, for stuff at home,

and we do shiva work too.

Uh, so we're part of that life cycle.

Jay, line one,

Congressman Ackerman's office.

Yeah, Terry.

Yeah, we're working on the cake.

Our people come to us for these things.

That's part of being in that social fabric.

Congressman Ackerman needs a farewell party.

He's been a congressman in the community for 30 years,

and he's just retired, so we're doing

a retirement party at Queen's College this Sunday.

I'm not taking his call!

We had a waitress, her name was Selma.

She was so tall, and so wide.

And there was this father and son.

Father was a widower, and the son was a bachelor.

They would come into eat at the deli,

if you told me seven days a week,

I wouldn't be surprised.

They sit down at the counter and she says, "Okay, today...

you're gonna have some soup and a steak.

You haven't had a steak in a long time,

but you're not getting any French fries and no dessert.

Look at this, you're putting on weight."

And I realized what was her magic charm.

She treated the people as if she was the mother.

You come home to the house to eat,

and you eat exactly what the mother serves.

You don't argue with her.

So when people came to the deli,

they were coming home to eat.

And the type of foods that we serve

are foods that you eat at home.

The haimishe chicken soup.

You have kasha varnishkes and egg barley.

Stuffed cabbage.

You have goulash.

Chicken fricassee.

All the haimishe maycholim, that's what you have.

That's what you have.

And now you've got me so hungry, I could eat the table.

So?

In 1931, the City of New York

did a survey of kosher eating establishments.

In the five boroughs of New York,

not even including Long Island and New Jersey,

there were some 1,550 kosher delicatessens,

kosher.

And of course at that time, not all delis were kosher.

A great number of them were "kosher style."

Jewish but not necessarily kosher.

Like Katz's, which was never kosher.

And you could easily say that, it's probably, you know,

another 1,500 or 2,000 or 3,000, we don't really know.

But certainly at that point, the high water mark of deli,

in the New York City area alone,

there were thousands of Jewish delis.

Thousands of them.

Now it's really down to just a couple hundred

around the country, you know,

a fraction of what they once were.

How many delicatessens

were originally here, do you think?

In the neighborhood?

- Yeah. - Well...

I could speak for the early '50's.

And there were about a dozen,

just all within walking distance.

Including really small ones, that were like,

you know, 25-seat places.

And he's talking just like a couple square blocks radius.

This block had three.

Us, Crown and Henry.

One kosher out of the three.

And we were all thriving.

This place 30 years ago was rocking.

It was a mob.

At 4:00, there was a line out the door.

And who were my best customers here?

Jews. They were my best customers.

Not religious Jews, Jews.

They ate kosher food five days a week.

And on Saturday and Sunday they ate Chinese food.

That was a Jew, my mother.

Those same people, they either died,

or moved to Florida.

What's behind the decline

is kind of complicated.

The first factor is demographics and that changed.

As people got more wealthy, as people moved up, you know,

as they had the opportunity, they moved to the suburbs,

and the suburbs started opening up in the '40's and '50's,

and so you went from three delis on one block

to a giant deli in a shopping plaza on Long Island

which could seat 200 people.

Neighborhood delis?

The money that was there years ago,

you can't duplicate it today.

There's too many things against you.

Between city agencies, city ordinances,

unions, uh, utilities...

I charge $15 for a corned beef sandwich, right?

And people look at me like I'm crazy.

But the same person goes out at night

and goes to a local bar around here, a restaurant,

orders an $18 martini, right?

And they don't blink... They don't bat an eye, right?

And they tell me,

"What, you don't give coleslaw away anymore?"

It's like, come on, I got rent to pay.

To my knowledge right now, there are...

five major delis left in New York,

and four of them own their real estate.

Katz's, Carnegie,

2nd Avenue Deli, and Sarge's

So they control their own destiny.

The landmark Stage Deli

takes its final curtain call.

The famed Manhattan restaurant is now closed.

The only warning some customers had was a sign on the door

which reads, "Thanks for 75 years."

One worker at the restaurant tells us

the owners were having financial problems

and fighting with the landlord.

Those we spoke with say it's sad

their favorite spot has served its last meals.

Look at the East Side. It's totally different now.

They've got all these hipster joints, like this crepe place.

Yeah.

Dad, do you remember the shul?

The First Romanian-American Congregation.

I don't know, from a shul to retail.

I guess it's, uh, it's just a totally different world.

This was Grandpa's synagogue.

Look at this.

You've got a Japanese restaurant,

and you have the whole synagogue on the top there.

Yeah.

- It's kind of a shame, don't you think? - Why?

'Cause it's like they're washing away our Jewishness.

Nah. They'll open someplace else.

But don't you think it's sad that...

No, it's not sad, it's time.

There's a time for everything.

Everything gets old. It changes.

You come here 20 years from now,

I bet you won't see one of these tenements anymore.

I know you have a different way of looking at it.

But I'm kind of sad when I see this, it's a progression,

and I don't know if I like the progression,

I think it's getting homogenized.

You know?

That's nature.

Nothing lasts forever.

Yeah. Well...

We don't. Neighborhoods don't.

Now you gonna see it's around three times.

No, you got a little longer?

Look at this, I'm not even raising my hand...

- Suck in. - You.

Come on, get me a bigger apron, please.

I'm not as short as you, I've got tall issues.

Remember, I can lose weight, but you will always be short.

Here we go, we're getting ready for the chicken soup contest.

We do this once a year at Temple Emanu-El.

We've already made our chicken soup,

and hopefully we're gonna win, I'm hoping.

Where's all the stuff... You loaded it already?

It's loaded.

We have this whole list?

No pressure at all when you're working with Ziggy.

There's never pressure!

No, never pressure with Ziggy.

Come on, move your ass.

- We've been waiting for... - An hour for Kenny and Ziggy's.

For an hour for Kenny and Ziggy's.

It's the best.

♪♪

Come on, don't be bashful, folks.

Don't be bashful, come on, eat up.

Do you know where you are?

I know where I am, come on.

Let's eat some pastrami.

This Bud's for you.

Which one?

Okay, hi.

- Hello. - You want rugelach?

I would like a rugelach and a little chopped liver.

We're getting a lot of people, but kinehora,

we're at the point that everyone's coming

for seconds and thirds.

You want soup?

Okay, give him some chicken soup.

I didn't know you were a cannibal.

And now,

the winner of the People's Choice Award!

Unprecedented...

Kenny and Ziggy's!

The people have spoken.

We got the People's Choice Award, thank God for that.

Plus, feeding them with a little pastrami

and chopped liver didn't hurt.

All right.

What was very shocking in the whole event was...

See, I didn't ask Mary to help us.

And that really, really was a very lovely,

nice thing for her to do.

She came in, you turned around,

all of a sudden she's standing next to Jeanne.

She's shlepping them some chopped liver,

she's handing out rugelach, that was very nice.

I wasn't expecting that...

You know?

Some of the other girls that I've dated in the past,

they weren't so nice like that.

They didn't, um, they weren't so thoughtful.

How many onions you want in the, in your...

Two.

Do you want them diced?

No, no, no, we'll do the chopper.

No, no, we... I don't need a chopper.

Chopper!

You don't know how to chop an onion?

I don't want to chop an onion.

I told him, Ziggy.

When you meet the right person, you'll know it.

That's it.

I mean, he's getting up there already,

and this is the time to get married,

and the time to have a family, it's nice.

That's what they call a French-style roux.

I would like to see him have kids,

'cause that's all he wants.

And I want to see him go through the pain

I've been going through, I really do.

'Cause he thinks it's easy.

God bless you, Mary, you got the...

Hey!

Look, I want to get married in Hungary.

In the main synagogue,

because that's... my grandfather

got bar mitzvahed in that thing, you know?

Listen, he was lucky, he got out,

and the family that stayed died in the Holocaust.

Three older brothers and their families.

That's why I want to go back, because it's a complete circle.

You know, my grandfather started here, and then like basically

the tradition's alive,

and then end it like that.

Tell me what you think of that bad boy?

You're the best, babe.

It's hot today.

Listen, I put in a long day.

I'm tired, you know...

Don't you give me a hard time,

that's not nice.

Oh, my God.

I get this phone call

from a restaurant reviewer

and he says, "Jay, what's new?"

I say, "Walter, absolutely nothing."

Nothing is new.

We make everything the same old way,

we prepare everything the same old way,

we don't change anything.

Everything exactly the way it was

when my dad opened the store about 70 years ago.

If it's perfect, why change it?

This is what we are.

- Yes. - Noodle kugel?

Jewish food is earthy food.

A lot of people take it now to,

they do this Jewish fusion stuff.

Look.

Don't do Jewish fusion, just do straight Jewish food.

When I go to everyone's ethnic restaurant,

when I go to a... I don't want Italian fusion.

I don't want Indian fusion.

I even don't like... I like Chinese food

to be Chinese food, I don't like Chinese fusion.

I want Jewish Jewish food, no Jewish fusion.

♪♪

Pastrami and corned beef doesn't

just go on sandwiches here.

We do pastrami cheese fries.

Matt's preparing fried kugel, which is definitely

something that grandmother never made.

Um, he's balling up a noodle kugel.

We'll put it in a tempura batter,

deep-fry it, then cover it with maple syrup.

We're a 30-seat restaurant

in the far reaches of the most Latino neighborhood in San Francisco.

We both live very close by,

and it's a place for us to share Jewish cuisine

to a much wider audience,

and let people know that

this is our ethnic food.

Deli is, you know,

it's not a commandment. It's not like, "Thou shall eat,

you know, corned beef, and thou shall have it with mustard."

Um, Wise Sons said, well, this food is great.

We can make it with traditional ingredients

and traditional methods.

We're going to render our own schmaltz

and do everything from scratch.

We're going to bake our own bread,

we're going to cure our own meat,

and deliver something that's unique.

It's not the same old soup reheated.

Showing the possibility of what it could be

without sacrificing in any way the authenticity of it.

Over here actually, we make a chili,

uh, but we use corned beef for the chili.

And the it's gonna go right over the top of a hot dog,

cheddar cheese, onions, like a classic chili dog.

And then we put gribenes on top,

to give it a nice little crunch.

What's in the Moroccan carrots?

Um, cardamom, garlic...

We're a neighborhood place

that I would want to go,

and I want to support the ecosystem around me.

You know, with our cultural

and religious backgrounds,

it's important for us to serve meat that lived a good life,

that was taken care of properly.

Vegetables that are coming direct from the farmer,

supporting the ecosystem.

It's important.

Look, sometimes the industry has to change.

If you have someone who's never had this stuff before,

there is no expectation.

So then you can mold the market, you can rebrand it,

you can bring it forward.

So I applaud that.

Look, we're traditional,

but we're moving towards other things,

like salads and we're taking lungen stew off the menu,

and we're taking heart off the menu,

and we're taking off a bunch of the other items

that really nobody understands.

But not undermining exactly what you come here for.

Bread was walked over this morning

from our baker, which is two or three blocks away.

We're building on a bakery that we think

is going to do a lot of baking for us here,

and for our new location

at the Contemporary Jewish Museum downtown.

♪♪

We can challah every, every day,

but we braid it only for Shabbat.

And I think the braiding is just a really beautiful act,

and special for special days.

♪♪

Deli, it's not dead, necessarily.

Um... we think it was just kind of time for a refresh.

I came up with this idea, "Jew it up"

as a take-off on, "Do it up."

And it's a way of putting a positive connotation

on the verb, to do something,

it means to have fun with it.

And really what we like to do around here is Jew it up.

You know, it's, it's have fun with being Jewish,

of Jewish food and Jewish food culture.

It's only a positive thing.

It's trying to reclaim that word and that idea.

This is the Leaning Tower of Caplansky.

I was a dot-com millionaire, a scrap metal broker,

a business consultant, owned a chai shop in India.

I was a political consultant for a few years.

To open a deli in the face of the fact

that all these other ones have closed,

and to have been successful with it,

is something I'm enormously proud of.

We're most well known for our smoked meat sandwich

in the deli section.

I'm not a very religious person, but culturally

my Jewish identity is really important to me.

How do you explain to someone what a matzoh ball is

without starting into the story of the Exodus from Egypt.

You know it's, what's matzoh?

Why do we have matzoh?

You know, why is this soup unlike every other soup?

And it's another way to suddenly introduce

the cultural component of the food.

And, I don't apologize for that, there's no reason

I should have to apologize for that.

That, that it's...

This is who I am, this is what we grew up with.

We'll serve 600 people,

700 people in a day here.

You know, the fact that you guys were here yesterday

and came back today

says that we're doing something right.

But beyond that, to me a deli is a community builder.

And we do that in a number of different ways.

Welcome to Caplansky's, it's Sunday night,

and that can only mean one thing, Storytelling,

with our host, Michael Wex, Michael, let's go.

Uh, great to be here, as always on Sunday.

Because it's an open mic, there are almost no rules.

We have a series that we call

the Battle of the Bubbes.

We bring home cooks in,

bring their recipes in, people love to take part in this.

And my favorite, Passover.

And having a community Seder in the deli for Passover

makes as strong a statement as we can make

of inviting the city in to celebrate

what is a great freedom holiday with us.

So the story telling, the Battle of the Bubbes,

and the Passover have all been great ways for me

to raise my profile in the community,

tell people what we're doing here at the restaurant,

and again it's way of bringing this food that I love

to this city that I love.

I'm part of a very important tradition.

And when I look in the mirror now...

I'm a Deli Man.

♪♪

You know, my grandfather

had to run from Hungary.

We're gonna walk back.

And we're going to invoke the spirit of all of my past relatives

in that synagogue,

in that beautiful ceremony,

and it's going to be magical

because I'm going to be sharing my life with Mary,

who I love and adore.

But I loved and adored

my grandparents so much,

and I know that they will be there,

and I know they'll be watching me.

Mazel Tov!

Do you remember that Spielberg movie,

when they brought back that woman for one day?

I'd love to bring back my grandfather

and my grandmother for one day,

and just have questions to ask them

regarding our family, and see what,

what they would tell you.

Plus, I'd like the gravy recipe.

♪♪

It's a really hard business.

Physically, emotionally, financially.

And you can't do it unless you love it.

That's why I'm here. I love what I do.

If you put me behind a desk,

and had to deal with the corporate world,

I, I would... I would kill myself.

I tried it, here I am.

I love this business.

Baseball game, football game, hockey game,

you name it, I never went.

I always worked.

And if I had to do my life all over again,

I would do it the exact same way.

You have to have that love.

I was that guy who said,

"I'm never gonna get on that treadmill."

Man, am I on that treadmill.

I never really looked back.

This is going to table 52.

Ziggy Gruber bleeds borscht.

And someday he's going to be on the cover of "Time Magazine."

He's the best.

Sweep it good.

Remember, you don't wipe your ass halfway.

Did everyone bring their appetite?

Is it a lot of hours? Yes.

Does it have its high moments? Yes.

Does it have its tough moments? Absolutely.

But, you know, I wouldn't trade any of it.

This is the life we chose.

This is what we're supposed to do.