Save the Last Salami for Me

Note: This is the first of a 2-part series on restaurants that rock.

With the arrival of the High Holy Days tomorrow, I am reflecting on Jewish food and culture.

My mother always said I liked the old Jewish ways when it came to food: chopped liver made with schmaltz; matzoh ball soup; a Yom Kippur break-fast featuring noodle kugel, nova, and bagels; marble halvah; herring; and a side of heartache. Now my heart aches for the vanishing Jewish delis across America.

In 2023, I wrote that Corky and Lenny’s, a signature Jewish deli whose corned beef was legendary here in Cleveland, had closed. That left Jack’s, which had always had issues with the local health commission and has since shut down, and Davis Bakery and Deli, which is clean but lacks the atmosphere of a great deli.

In the glory days of Jewish delis, you schlepped to one of three behemoths that stood in New York City: Katz’s on Houston Street, The Stage Deli near Carnegie Hall, or the Carnegie Deli on 7th Avenue. (The Stage and the Carnegie were just a block apart.) My mom and dad would take me to one of the two midtown eateries after a Broadway show for a late-night corned beef on rye sandwich.

Of these great New York delis, only Katz’s remains.* Katz’s was famous for shipping salami to your boy in the army decades before Billy Crystal sat there and declared “I’ll have what she’s having” in response to Meg Ryan’s passionate outburst in When Harry Met Sally. Somewhere in there, there’s a salami joke.

Incidentally, Yonah Schimmel’s Knish Bakery is only steps away from Katz’s on East Houston Street. It began as a pushcart in 1890 and still looks the same as it did when the owner opened a storefront in 1910—a total blast from the past.

I am not the only one bemoaning vanishing Jewish delis. Back in 2009, cultural historian David Sax published Save the Deli, which served as both a rallying cry and an examination of the “changing health trends, suburban flight, assimilation, and rising operational costs that caused historic, beloved delis to close.” You knew things were looking grim when they eliminated the free pickles.

Today, I can partially scratch my deli itch by ordering nova, lox, chopped liver, and herring from Russ and Daughters, also on New York’s Lower East Side. Purists will note that Russ and Daughters, whose smoked salmon is sublime, is technically an appetizing store rather than a deli. This means a place that serves foods typically eaten with bagels.

All of this makes me emotional (and hungry). 

I miss the days when my family would gather at my cousins Ronnie and Marcia Schumann’s for the Yom Kippur break-fast. Marcia was a superb hostess who knew how to put out a spread. The lox always came from “Corky’s.”

I miss going to Corky’s with my mom and dad for a pastrami on rye. 

And it’s been a minute since Joe and I ate at Katz’s in New York.

It was never just about the food. As any Jewish mother and son know, “food is love.”

I am positively lachrymose as I lament the latkes of yesteryear.

Inside Katz's on West Houston Street

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*To my astonishment, immediately after I wrote this post, I saw news that the fabled Carnegie Deli in Manhattan is reopening next week, Lazarus-like. Ironically, the new Carnegie is opening in the space once occupied by The Stage Deli. If the reports are accurate, I see an overstuffed celebrity sandwich in my future this December - perhaps the Woody Allen (half pastrami and half corned beef) or the Broadway Danny Rose (corned beef, pastrami, and coleslaw).

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