Ruminations-On the Hoopla Over a Jewish Deli

Ever since All the Best Deli opened its doors, the discussions on the restaurant groups have been vociferous and partisan. Some of it have even become nasty. I suppose that is a reflection of the times that we are in. Even accounting for our present culture’s proclivity for polarization, it is still very surprising from the usually genteel people of the Midwest.

I had seen this report about Steingold’s Deli in Chicago. (https://abc7chicago.com/jewish-deli-chicago-near-me-steingolds/13303768/) and it occurred to me that one of the contributing reasons is the expectations that the general public has when they speak of delis. There is a huge difference between deli’s and Jewish deli’s as the reporter tried to explain in the video. It never occurred to me because as I had lived in cities such as Atlanta, St. Louis, and Ann Arbor, there were Jewish deli’s in those cities. It didn’t bother me that there wasn’t a Jewish deli in Dayton, although I did miss my latke’s, matzo ball, kreplach, and knishes. I also missed the meats: briskets, corned beef, and pastrami that did not come with the Boar’s Head label stamped on the packaging.

Not all delis are the same. Just as not all places who make sandwiches call themselves delis, any place that calls themselves delis are not automatically Jewish deli’s. The difference in price can be attributed to the difference between a place that calls itself a deli and one that calls itself a Jewish deli, it is not apples to apples.

A Jewish deli is a place where the meats are prepared by the establishment, come out of the tables steaming hot, and are then sliced for each order. The bread must be Jewish rye, baked in small batches, unless otherwise requested. There are minimal accoutrements but the menu also has plenty of other Jewish cuisine delicacies to fill my needs.

I need to declare at the outset that I don’t own stock in the restaurant, I don’t work there, nor am I related to anyone who owns of works there.  They don’t pay me for endorsements either. In fact, I have only been once, and I was quite a happy customer. I intend to go back again to sample the menu items that I had not sampled.

Being the curious sort that I am, I did a bit of Googling to see whether there are real Jewish delis in the surrounding area. The only place that I would call a Jewish deli is Shapiro’s in Indianapolis, this is where I would resort to when I needed my Jewish deli yen met. Matzo ball soup, an order of latkes, and big old sandwich on rye bread, the meat being the only variable.

I am unfamiliar with the food scene in Cincinnati and Columbus but in my cursory search, I found Izzy’s (Cincinnati) and Katzinger’s (Columbus)

I looked at the menu of All The Best Deli  and picked out some quintessential staples of a Jewish deli. I then tried to compile a table comparing Jewish deli’s in the other cities. As it turned out, Izzy’s and Katzingers offered less than half of what All The Best Deli offers, so I took them off the comparison.

I selected Steingold’s in Chicago, Shapiro’s in Indianapolis, and Katz’s Deli in New York City, the iconic representative of a proper Jewish deli in my humble opinion. I was able to compare the prices for five menu items that are offered by both All The Best Deli and Steingold’s; seven menu items that are offered by both All The Best Deli and Shapiro’s; eight menu items that are offered by both All The Best Deli and Katz’s. I could not accurately judge the portion size comparisons between the different restaurants, so that is something for people to continue to kvetch about.

Some salient points, I had selected a dozen items from All The Best, three were dropped because they weren’t offered by the majority of the Jewish deli’s I selected; I was down to nine menu items. The restaurants in the Midwest had mostly comparable prices. Katz’s prices were astronomical as compared to the midwestern restaurants.  To put things into better perspective I looked up the cost-of-living comparisons between Dayton to NYC and adjusted the Katz’s prices to bring it closer to a Dayton equivalence. For your information, the cost of Living in NYC is 43% more than Dayton. The farthest right column shows the adjusted price. The comparison between the adjusted Katz’s price and as compared to the All The Best menu price, they are not all that different.  

One last variable in the menu pricing is that All The Best proudly proclaims that they source all of their foods from the best Jewish deli’s around the country since they wanted the best and most authentic Jewish food products available (https://allthebestdeli.com/our-story/ ), which means that they have to pay massive shipping costs to schlep all the food regularly from wherever the other deli’s are and get them to Dayton, which adds to the cost of doing business.

Here is to the wishful thinking that the malevolent tones of the kvetchers will ameliorate somewhat if they read this. But I highly doubt that.