Save the Deli

by David Sax

  Brooks had grown up as Melvin Kaminsky in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, during the 1930s, and his comedic career can be traced through delis. First, Brooks split his allegiances between two long-gone Williamsburg delis: Feingold’s and Greenwald’s. “Every Saturday night was deli night with my gang, starting at nine years old. My mother would set us free . . . the routine was deli first and then two movies. For fifteen cents I’d get a heavily laden pastrami sandwich, although if I had an extra nickel I’d order a corned beef sandwich, with potato salad. . . . Laden with deli mustard and a dill pickle, with a Dr. Brown’s cream soda, it was incredible.”

  It was at those double features where Mel Brooks absorbed Hollywood’s early comedians, rehashing the routines of Laurel and Hardy, the Three Stooges, and Charlie Chaplin in the deli with his friends. Later in life, when Brooks wrote for Sid Caesar’s This Show of Shows, he and the other writers sustained themselves on food from the Stage or Carnegie delicatessens. “I got a little more sophisticated,” Brooks recalled. “Sometimes I would have roast beef and Russian dressing from the Stage, and from the Carnegie (their pastrami was always so great), I’d have pastrami with coleslaw.”

  When Brooks finally moved to Los Angeles in 1972, he was based in 20th Century Fox and regularly ate at Factor’s. He’d work the room, stealing an urn from the server’s station, pouring coffee for all the customers. “I was cadging business. ‘Don’t forget to see Young Frankenstein opening next week!’ I’d say. I must have cost them hundreds of dollars in free coffee over the years.”

  Brooks viewed delicatessens differently than other restaurants when it came to fostering creativity, especially in comedy. “There’s nothing like a deli meeting,” Brooks said. “Deli food keeps the brain cooking. It speaks to me of being nurtured and having some of that Brooklyn love. . . . Delis are magnets for Jews, and Jews, in order to survive emotionally, have developed tremendous humor. They don’t have to be professionals. Every Jew is a good storyteller, and delis are bound in Jewish humor. Also, delis seem to be happy places. I’ve never seen anybody weeping at a table in a deli. I’ve seen them in cafés and smart restaurants dabbing their eyes, but I’ve never seen anyone crying in a deli. Never in a deli! No one ever has a bottle of Dom Perignon with their lover and says, ‘This isn’t working out.’ Cel-Ray tonic doesn’t cut it.”

  These days, Brooks is a regular at Junior’s Deli, in West Hollywood, where he’s a particular fan of owner Marvin Saul’s rugelach, individual apple pies, roast turkey sandwiches, and chicken in the pot (it was Saul who put Brooks in touch with me). Junior’s complimentary mini-latkes, which are small fried croquettes that come with each sandwich, are another story. “I don’t know what they are,” Brooks said, kibitzing, “but they’re deep-fried and you got twenty minutes to live after you eat one. You might as well give it a name. You might as well call it Murray, because it’ll be with you for days after you eat it. David, you must remember this: I as Jew do not chew!”

  In many ways, L.A.’s deli culture thrived on the patronage of deli lovers like Mel Brooks and Larry King, who had grown up around kosher delis in New York, and reconnected to their roots via soup and a sandwich. In one of the largest, least traditional communities in the American Diaspora, where Jews actually compete among themselves for the lavishness of their Christmas decorations, the delicatessen for many is the full extent of their Jewish identity. “In many parts of L.A., the deli was established before the community center or shul [synagogue],” said Stephen Sass, the president of the Jewish Historical Society of Southern California. “For some, having a corned beef sandwich is their only link to the ancient temple in Jerusalem.”

  Even to Hollywood gentiles, the Jewish delicatessen offers a certain sanctuary. Take the case of Mr. T, the tough-talking, chain-clad 1980s icon from The A Team. When Mr. T first came to Los Angeles in 1981 to shoot Rocky III, the Chicago native knew nobody. But upon entering Junior’s delicatessen, Marvin Saul took a shine to the young bruiser. “He didn’t even know me when I first came in,” Mr. T told me, in the midst of eating his way across L.A.’s delis. “Soon after, I called Marvin ‘Dad’ and ‘Father’ because he watched me grow.” In a typical sitting at Junior’s, Mr. T will put away three glasses of orange juice, a couple of eggs, potato salad, and a hot pastrami sandwich on four slices of whole wheat bread (I didn’t dare suggest he try rye). Mr. T remains an adamant deli lover, and for those who say Jewish deli is unhealthy, Mr. T has a few choice words. “Anyone who says deli is bad for you: I pity the fool! That’s a bunch of junk! A lot of people get caught up in health food, walk out, and get hit by a truck!”

  Delis can provide an essential dose of reality for budding stars and fragile egos in L.A. This is precisely why young actors David Hirsh and Jonas Chernick formed a group called Pea Soup Wednesdays. Each and every Wednesday they meet for lunch in a Jewish deli. “In a city that exists in a state of fakery, where everyone wears their masks, I really look forward to it,” said Chernick as we sat in a large booth at Canter’s with Hirsh. Delis were an antidote to the soul-sucking Hollywood lifestyle. “I’ve got friends here who after two years will reference their psychics in passing,” Chernick recalled. “There’s a transformation that occurs if you’re not grounded. This,” Chernick said, holding up the fat chopped liver sandwich in his hands, “is the perfect antidote to Scientology.”

  Unfortunately for imperiled delis across America, there are very few applicable lessons that we can draw from the nexus of entertainment and deli. But don’t despair. For all the glitz and tits of Hollywood, stars didn’t make L.A.’s delis great . . . families did. More than any other city I visited, the delicatessens in Los Angeles were overwhelmingly family-owned, mostly for two or three generations. That’s an astounding fact. The Family Firm Institute, which conducts research on family businesses, notes that only 12 per cent of American family businesses make it to the third generation, and only 3 per cent to the fourth generation. While the children of delicatessen owners elsewhere were leaving delis to pursue less stressful careers, those in Los Angeles were maintaining the tradition.

  “This generation, there’s more at stake than just business partners,” said Jon Startz, the owner of National Foodservice, a supplier to L.A.’s delis. “All of them take pride in it. They seem to really adhere to the ways of fathers and grandfathers, [but] in a way that’s efficient to the twenty-first century.”

  Take the example of Brent’s Delicatessen, one of Startz’s largest customers, which has two locations in the San Fernando Valley. Brent’s was purchased in 1967 by Ron Peskin, a counterman who had worked around the city. Rather than rely on the TV and film trade, he focused on the Valley’s industrial areas and office parks. Brent’s is now run by Ron Peskin’s son Brent (the name’s a convenient coincidence), his daughter Carrie, and his son-in-law Marc Hernandez. Brent’s is the surprise heavyweight among deli aficionados in L.A. It lacks the star power of most other places, but the quality of Brent’s food garners praise from even the most self-assured competitors.

  At Brent’s, as in many L.A. delis, you can get everything under the sun, from creamy whitefish salad and combination sandwiches to imported Polish ham or brisket tacos. My golden rule—the larger the menu, the worse the traditional deli food—broke at Brent’s. Rather than eliminating classic Yiddish fare from its expanding menu, Brent’s has elevated it to a level of quality that is often unsurpassed, especially their kishke. With regard to the decline of delicatessens, kishke (a.k.a. stuffed derma or kishka) is the canary in a deli menu’s coalmine. A sausage-like dish of beef intestine stuffed with schmaltz and matzo meal, it was once a timeless classic on kosher delicatessen menus. But the difficulty of procuring the intestinal casing, and the labor involved in making the dish, has nearly rendered kishke extinct. Those few who carry it often use a processed product, which is made from an artificial casing and vegetable oil, arrives in a long orange tube and is sliced, heated in a microwave, and covered in gravy.

  So when Marc Hernandez told me tha
t Brent’s made their own, I was taken aback. “You can’t imagine what a bucket of cow intestines smells like,” Hernandez told me, crinkling his nose as he handed me piping-hot, cigar-sized kishke on a small plate. It smelled positively amazing, a greasy tube of goodness that crackled when I sliced into it, revealing a warm, moist meal the color of amber lager. The finely ground beads of matzo meal soaked up the velvet schmaltz and left a smoky sweetness in my mouth. Imagine a sausage with the flavor of duck confit. Since Brent’s had introduced the homemade kishke, it had been selling like crazy. Even better, the last time they removed an item from the menu it was fried shrimp, not pickled tongue. Family made this possible.

  “There’s not a lot of businesses today run by families,” Hernandez said. “[Customers] don’t like that. They want someone from the family here every day, or they’re upset. Ron eats here every day. Brent eats here every day. I eat here every day, and my wife eats here every day. You have to control it. That’s why I have three kids and I’m hoping to have a couple more. You cannot make deli a chain. It’s just not possible.” The only reason Brent’s was able to open a second location in late 2006 was that a family member would always be present. Hernandez, who worked in hotels for years before returning to Brent’s, saw how employees looked out solely for their own interests. By contrast, a family business is communal, with each family member holding shares.

  The same went for other delis in L.A.: Junior’s owner Marvin Saul’s sons, David and Jonathan, basically ran the restaurant now. Nate n’ Al was in its third generation, with brothers David and Mark Mendelson (grandsons of Al). Greenblatt’s was operated by Jeff Kavin, the third generation of his family in the business. Art Ginsburg’s son and daughter were aboard at Art’s. The Markowitz sisters were continuing their late parents’ tradition at Factor’s. Even the most corporate of L.A.’s delis, Jerry’s Famous Deli, was run by Guy Starkman, the son of late founder Ike Starkman.

  Many of the best delis that I’d visited across America—Michigan’s Stage Door, Bronx’s Liebman’s, Brooklyn’s Mill Basin, Chicago’s Manny’s—had been passed from generation to generation. When you have children, parents, and grandparents all putting in their two cents, the compromises that emerge ultimately leave stronger delis in their wake. On the other hand, delicatessens that were sold outside the family were always discussed in tones of sadness. “Oh them,” someone in the business would say. “Yeah, it’s a shame. It used to be such a great place, but it’s changed hands so many times.” When I saw David Apfelbaum, alone in David’s Deli, this became crystal clear. Sure there were exceptions, but most Jewish delis with a family legacy thrived better than those without.

  “There’s something unique about L.A. delis,” David Mendelson told me, as I sat in Nate n’ Al chatting with him and his brother, Mark. “Deli owners here aren’t only multigenerational, we’re also all friends! We all help each other. We call each other all the time.” When Nate n’ Al installed a new computer system a few years back, the Mendelsons personally went around to all the other delis in town, helping set theirs set up. In other cities, Jewish deli owners seemed to silently pray for the demise of their competitors, regarding any overtures of camaraderie with outright suspicion.

  “We need each other, we know that, and if we support each other we’ll grow,” said David Mendelson. “On the other hand, if you stop talking [to other delis] you’ll lose your customer base and your control over suppliers. It’s the fear of losing something you have, or something you want, that generates negative relationships. We’ll always take a call from someone else at a different deli.” David’s brother, Mark, who was by far the trimmest and most soft-spoken deli owner I’d ever met, saw the success of any individual delicatessen as beneficial to all Jewish delis. Family kept them united, family kept them pure, and family ultimately surpassed New York on deli’s signature sandwich.

  “The hot pastrami sandwich served at Langer’s Delicatessen in downtown Los Angeles is the finest hot pastrami sandwich in the world,” wrote Nora Ephron, in The New Yorker. “It’s a symphony orchestra, different instruments brought together to play one perfect chord. . . . [It] is, in short, a work of art.”

  Langer’s can be found nearby downtown L.A., kitty-corner to the infamous MacArthur Park. The long, low deli stands as an anomaly to a bustling street scene grinding to a rhythm of Mexican pop songs. The color scheme inside Langer’s is all shades of orange, brown, reds, and yellows, like a 1970s shag rug, and at the rear hang a trio of large oil paintings depicting countermen slicing pastrami.

  Waiting for me at a booth sat Norm Langer and his father, Al. The day before, Norm and I had spoken and he’d insisted that his father, who was ninety-four and in poor health, was not up for an interview. Still, when I arrived, a frail and diminutive Al Langer was sitting with his oxygen tank alongside his sixty-plus-year-old son, who now towered over him. Even at this age, Al bristled with enthusiasm, his big aquamarine eyes twinkling as he told tales of his youth. Though his white hair was fine and his voice quivered somewhat, his thin hands grasped Norm’s strongly.

  Al Langer was born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1913, and entered the deli business at the tender age of eleven, to earn money to have his bar mitzvah. After stints as a waiter in the Catskills and Miami, his parents moved to Los Angeles. Al quickly got a job at a deli, then went on to open various delis without success; first in Palm Springs, then in a bowling alley, where he met his late wife, Jean, a waitress who’d once slapped him with a whitefish. Al finally established Langer’s Delicatessen in 1947, and it remains in business today.

  Langer’s originally catered to the Jewish retirees who frequented MacArthur Park and to the business crowd from downtown. But by the late 1980s an economic downturn and the rise of crack cocaine turned the area into a borderline ghetto. Prostitution went on right outside the door, and clients were afraid to visit after dark. At first Al and Norm cut their hours and staff, then they put locks on the bathrooms. Finally, they considered shutting down the deli. It was only the construction of the Metro Red Line subway in 1993, which stopped directly in front of the deli, that saved Langer’s. “The Tuesday after it opened,” Norm Langer recalled, “we had five hundred people outside on a waiting list trying to get in.” Newspapers dubbed it the “Pastrami express.”

  Langer’s has always used pastramis from RC Provisions, one of the larger deli purveyors in Southern California. The seasoning RC uses is no different for Langer’s, but the secret unfolds in several phases. First, Langer’s orders a two- to two-and-a-half-pound piece of pastrami, smoked tender. The pastramis are smaller than most other delis’, leaner, and custom cut for the delicatessen. “I want a certain thing,” Al told me forcefully, “and I don’t care how much it costs. I’m a stickler.”

  After two and a half to four hours of steaming, the pastramis will ideally reach an internal temperature of 209° F. Only then are they are ready for the cutting board and the skilled hands of Langer’s cutters. Norm, who exuded the swaggering confidence of a member of the Rat Pack, stepped behind the counter. “Look, anybody can take a knife and cut thick or thin,” he said, standing over the deli’s cutting board. “In hand-cutting you have to work with the meat. You need to read the navel and meet the grain. Every pastrami has a piece of short rib on the side. You can’t chew it, it has the consistency of a diaphragm. But if you have a knife and a fork, you can cut it out.” Norm plunged a carving fork into a steaming pastrami and popped on a pair of reading glasses.

  “Can I? You think?” he said, daring me to challenge him. He slowly sculpted perfect slices off the pastrami, working his blade thoughtfully, while talking with bravado. “You want to send me back to the East Coast?” he taunted. “To New York, where they can teach me how to cut?” With a few turns of the knife and a flick of the wrist, Langer flipped the pastrami over on its back. “If you put it on a machine, they’re not going to cut out this,” he said, as he excised the aforementioned diaphragm. He tossed it to the side of the cutting board, a slimy, yel
low membrane that would surely have ruined a sandwich. “If you put it on the machine, that is going to go in it,” he said, stabbing his fork into the wood resolutely. “That’s the difference.”

  And yet, as he gloated, one of the countermen began cutting a pastrami on a slicing machine. I looked at Norm quizzically. We sat back down and Norm explained. “I’ll tell you who the best cutters I ever had were: Art Bebovitz, Leo Ginzburg, Al Factor, Gene Goldstein, and Joe Harmenstein. These men were the hall of fame in this city. During the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, I had six or seven countermen that were all A’s. They were the cat’s meow, they couldn’t possibly cut better.” His father nodded in agreement, muttering their names in appreciation.

  “Today I got one A, a B, a C+,” Norm said, “and two I haven’t yet decided on.” Some people could hand-cut and some couldn’t, and those who couldn’t were better off using a machine. Over the years, supermarkets and discount delicatessens had left Langer’s with a shallow roster. Rather than try to keep them all, Norm and Al selected a few A’s and hoped that they could pass along their skills. Even still, no matter how well a counterman or manager was trained, they’d never be family. “It’s a feel,” Norm said, patting his belly with a smile. “When you have your name on a sign, the customer can easily relate to that. It’s real. But the second you pay a manager a percentage it becomes corporate. . . . It’s gotta be you!” Langer’s was Langer’s because a Langer was at the helm. Norm was training his daughter Trisha in the business. His wife, Jeanette, worked the cash register. Their family name was the business.

  When Langer’s Delicatessen celebrated its sixtieth anniversary in June 2007, the intersection of 7th and Alvarado was renamed Langer’s Square. With his legacy ensured, Al Langer slipped into death just two weeks later. Though his passing was marked by warm obituaries from across the nation, the greatest tribute to Al Langer’s life was his incomparable hot pastrami sandwich.