Our family trips and family functions were scheduled around the store, just as Grandpa Russ had done. Weekends and holiday periods, when most people were celebrating or vacationing or just spending time with their families, were the busiest times for us. In order to go on a family trip, we would have to take the kids out of school. The one upside to working weekends and taking one day off during the week was that on our day off, the places we wanted to go to—department stores, movies, restaurants—were less crowded than they would be on weekends. Maria recognized other advantages to working in a family business: she had the flexibility to come and go as she pleased and was able to run home or to school if there was a problem with one of the kids. And she didn’t seem to mind—she actually enjoyed—the hard work that the business demanded. She was often more physically active around the store than I was, and she would chide me when I spent too much time schmoozing when there was “real work” to be done.
As Noah and Niki grew older, we felt that it was time for them to learn, in my parents’ inimitable words, “what it means to make a buck.” How did Mom and Dad pay for the swimming, tennis, ballet, and skiing lessons, and all of the equipment that went along with them? And where did the money come from that would pay their tuition at Williams and Amherst colleges in Massachusetts, at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, and at L’Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris? Noah and Niki had been in and out of the store from the time they were babies. In the beginning, it had been only a place to play: to hide behind the herring barrels, to ride on top of the fifty-pound sacks of onions being wheeled in on a hand truck, to swipe pieces of candy when their parents weren’t looking. As they got older, they would learn that the store was actually a serious place of business. They would slice herrings, pack orders, answer phones, deliver packages, and work alongside their parents late into the night when the holidays came and the work demanded it.
Somehow, these childhood experiences took root in Niki as they had in me, and ultimately they brought her back to the store as an adult. But not Noah. From the time he was four years old and was giving anatomically correct names to the bones of the chicken we had just eaten for dinner, Noah had always wanted to practice medicine, and he followed his dream. As far as I know, I am the only Jewish father who was disappointed that his kid became a doctor. I was thinking sturgeon, not surgeon.
After college, Niki moved to the West Coast and was hired as assistant to the director of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. We missed her dearly and were quite happy when, a year and a half later, she said she was coming back to New York. I was not so happy to hear that she was going to work for an NPO, which, I was told, meant “not-for-profit organization.” “We are the Russ family,” I told her. “We sell herrings FPO [for profit only].”
When she left that job to plan her next move, I made my move—an offer of an apartment above the store, just as my father had tried to do with me. It worked this time, and it kept her within the “call zone.” As in, “Niki, can you come down and help me with the phones?” “Niki, can you cover the candy side today, because Olga is out sick?” “Niki, can you help us through the holidays?” She agreed to work for us “temporarily,” a word that in the Russ family has come to mean thirty to forty years.
So I would introduce Niki to the customers by saying, “This is my daughter, Niki. She’s not only pretty, she’s real smart.” That was all true. But Niki didn’t want to be known as my daughter; she didn’t want to be known as anyone’s daughter at that time. She left the business to spend some years finding her own way in the world. And I was left with a broken heart and a broken dream of father and daughter working together behind the counter.
In 2002, shortly after Niki declared her intention to leave, I received a call from my sister Tara’s son, my nephew Josh. “Uncle Mark, I heard that Niki is leaving and I’d like to come into the business,” he said. This was not the first time Josh had asked to come in. The last time, I had dissuaded him. Josh was raised in an ashram. His mother had moved there in the late 1960s in search of a spiritual and communal lifestyle. Many who did this quickly tired of ashram life and left after a year or two, but Tara stayed and raised her three children there. When Josh grew up, he left the ashram, went to school, became a chemical engineer, and worked for a high-tech company in Portland, Oregon. He never had much contact with the store, other than occasional visits, during which he spent most of the time pocketing candies from behind the candy counter. What could he possibly know about this business—what we sold, how we sold it, and how hard it was? But this time I suddenly saw Josh as a potential heir apparent. “Okay, Josh,” I said. “You can come in and we’ll see how it goes. No promises.” I expected a very short-lived relationship.
Josh immediately impressed me with his approach to the business. He could go from point A to point B in a straight line, a crucial trait when running a business, but one that I could never master. I firmly believed that everyone who works in a small store, especially the owner, should be able to wear many hats and perform many jobs. I spent many hours of the day detouring from point A to point C, completely forgetting that I had originally set out for point B. But Josh, a trained engineer now selling smoked fish, was able to compartmentalize tasks and actually get them done. Moreover, Josh was my nephew and not my child. There would be no broken hearts if this didn’t work out. I would teach him how to buy and sell fish the Russ way: in the smokehouses and from behind the counter; ten hours a day, six days a week. And guess what? He learned, and it worked out.
In 2006 I got a call from Niki. She had finished her walkabout—her exploration of business school, law, psychology, sociology, and nursing—and the wandering Jew wanted to come home. “Dad, I’d like to come back into the business,” she said. I would not make that decision. I could not have my heart broken again. She would have to get the okay from Josh and from Herman, the manager of Russ & Daughters. They were running the business now, and they would have to decide whether they wanted Niki as part of their team. And they did. Four years later, in December 2009, Maria and I formally sold Russ & Daughters to Josh and Niki. In the Russ family, every generation inherits the right to buy out the preceding generation. It is an old family tradition, a tradition I am happy to keep.
Lox, Eggs, and Onions
SERVES 4
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 large onion, cut into ¼-inch dice (about 2 cups)
8 large eggs
¼ cup whole milk or half-and-half
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
2 ounces lox (about 2½ slices), cut into strips (or use scraps and wings)
2 tablespoons minced fresh chives
Heat the oil in a large, heavy skillet (preferably nonstick) over medium-low heat. Add the onions and sauté, stirring occasionally, until they are golden brown, about 20 to 30 minutes. Meanwhile, whisk the eggs and milk or half-and-half in a medium bowl. Season with salt and pepper, but go easy on the salt, as lox is quite salty.
Reduce the heat to low. Add the butter to the skillet with the onions. When the butter has melted, pour in the eggs. Sprinkle the lox and chives evenly over the eggs. Cook, folding slowly and constantly with a rubber spatula or large wooden spoon, until the eggs are set but still slightly wet, about 5 to 7 minutes. Taste and adjust with more salt and pepper as necessary.
3
The Employees
The Extended Family
As much tsuris as hiring family members gave Grandpa Russ, his situation became even worse when he employed people who were “strangers” at J. Russ Cut Rate Appetizing.
Jewish Revenge
Harry Eisenberg was a shomer Shabbos, a religious man and Sabbath observer who wouldn’t work on Saturdays. But he knew how to run an appetizing store. When Grandpa Russ hired Harry in the late 1920s, they made a deal: Joel would work on Saturdays and stay home on Sundays. Harry would do the reverse. But then Joel demanded that Harry trave
l in from his home in the Bronx on Saturday nights—after sundown, of course—to help in the store with the late-night rush from the Yiddish theater crowd. Harry wouldn’t. Instead, he quit. But not only did he quit, he also opened his own store two doors away, at 177 East Houston Street. The sign read
H. EISENBERG
CUT RATE APPETIZERS
That’s Jewish revenge. At first, Grandpa Russ worried that Harry would steal his trade secrets as well as his customers. But by this time, Joel’s three pretty daughters worked in the store. Hardworking and capable, they could slice lox, make change, and charm and disarm the most difficult customers. When they began working full-time in the store, Harry countered by bringing in his son, Murray—a nice boy, but not as good-looking as my mother and my aunts. No competition. Harry ultimately folded his store and went to work for another appetizing shop in the neighborhood. And Grandpa, knowing a good thing when he saw it, renamed J. Russ Cut Rate Appetizing. It became Russ & Daughters.
Ivan: Bowery Bum or Russian Noble?
Grandpa Russ made one other hire from outside the family. Since he wouldn’t allow his daughters to schlep the heavy herring barrels, he hired Ivan. Ivan was an elderly Russian. It was hard to tell just how old he really was because a hard life had left him beaten and bowed. He was a drunkard from the Bowery when the Bowery, just a few blocks from Russ & Daughters, was home to cheap saloons, boardinghouses, and the alcoholics who frequented them. Ivan managed to get off the street because my grandfather allowed him to sleep in the back of the store and paid him a meager wage in return for working in the kitchen, peeling onions, filleting herrings, and washing pots and pans. Each morning Ivan schlepped three two-hundred-pound barrels of herring from the back of the store to the front sidewalk, ready for passersby to buy their herrings from one of the Russ daughters. Ivan kept up a running argument most of the day with some invisible form of deity. He would look up at the ceiling, shake his fist, and say something in Russian gibberish that no one understood—not even my grandfather, who spoke Russian. It was clear to all that Ivan held God responsible for his unhappy life.
There was a curious thing about Ivan. When it was time for a meal, he carefully washed his hands, took off his cap, sat at a tiny table in the kitchen, and meticulously arranged a plate with herring, smoked fish, and bread and butter, all of which he ate with a knife and a fork, displaying impeccable table manners. It was rumored that Ivan, the Bowery bum and herring-barrel schlepper, actually came from Russian nobility. But we were never able to find out for certain; nobody was willing to ask him.
Real Jews, Slicing Real Lox, with Real Attitude
Business boomed at Russ & Daughters during World War II. Selling canned goods “off-ration,” or under the table, turned out to be quite profitable. And when the boys came home from overseas, things continued on the upswing. There was plenty to celebrate—peace, prosperity, family events—and Jews liked to celebrate with smoked fish and herring. Besides the retail store, we also had a successful wholesale business that supplied lox, smoked salmon, pickled herring, schmaltz herring, and chopped herring to Manhattan restaurants and luncheonettes. Since the Russ daughters now worked only on weekends and holidays, more help was needed.
Many returning soldiers were able to join their family businesses. Others took advantage of the newly created GI Bill and earned college or professional degrees paid for by the government. But there were also those who had neither a family business to fall back on nor an interest in higher education. Working in an appetizing store, a butcher shop, or a bakery would give them a trade and provide them with a decent living. We hired a few such men at Russ & Daughters.
Harry Pulvers, half brother to Uncle Max and therefore not technically a “stranger,” came back from the Pacific theater something of a hero. He had been a combat soldier in the jungles of the South Pacific, and the family had high hopes for him as an employee. Tragically, he lived through the war only to die of a brain tumor shortly after being hired as a counterman at Russ & Daughters.
Another one of our countermen, a fellow named Sidney, was a sergeant during the war but was always evasive about whether he had actually been in combat. He did treat the store as a war zone, though: the counter was the DMZ and the customers were the enemy. But Sidney brought army efficiency to Russ & Daughters. He could slice a pound of lox—though a bit too thickly—wrap an order, prepare salads, fill in the showcase, and wipe down the scales all at once. Sidney also loved to give orders and seemed to forget that he worked for the family, and that they didn’t work for him. So a guy named Steinie was hired as a sort of assistant counterman, to give Sidney someone to boss around. When Steinie left, Louie was hired to serve that same function, but that didn’t work out well, either.
Sidney could best be described as a farbissener, someone who is bitter and angry at the world and whose greatest pleasure is to make those around him just as miserable. If he waited on you, Sidney made it clear that he was doing you a favor. You were a mere interruption; he needed to get back to the important work of slicing, packing, filleting, and cleaning. There was no time for schmoozing. Customers put up with Sidney’s attitude because they believed him to be one of the Russes, a son-in-law, they thought. And Sidney didn’t disabuse them of that notion when there were no real Russes around.
When I took over the store in January 1978, I realized how difficult it would be for Sidney to accept that he wasn’t going to be the boss but, rather, that he would now be working for a pisher, a kid whom he had watched grow up. (And what could a lawyer possibly know about fish?) Sidney had always been a part of my life, behind the counter and at every Russ family function: bris, bar mitzvah, wedding, and funeral. So when I came on board, I gave him a raise, shortened his working hours, increased his vacation time, and gave him the title of general manager. None of it worked. He told everyone—suppliers, customers, and employees—that I didn’t know the first thing about fish. In part I believed him and believed that I needed him, and because I needed him I put up with his bad attitude. Who else could I turn to? All the other Russes who knew the business were either retired or dead. Finally, in 1986, after Sidney had spent almost forty years behind the counter at Russ & Daughters, I forced him to retire. It was a painful experience.
Part-timers were hired for the weekends. Hy, Hymie, Al, and Dave had once owned their own appetizing stores, but they were now retired and waiting for the final exodus: Florida or Beth David Cemetery. While they waited, they wanted to keep busy, make a few bucks, and get out of the house. Appetizing had been their life. They knew smoked fish, and they knew how to make a sale. But their knowledge came at a steep price. They weren’t going to listen to me. They told me when they would work, how much they would get paid, and how to run the business. And they couldn’t get along with one another, either. At times they even faced off behind the counter with lox knives in their hands. I will say, it did keep the customers engaged while they were waiting for their orders.
The Postwar, Post-Jewish Labor Pool
The end of World War II hastened the exodus of Jews from the Lower East Side. Jewish veterans returned with a desire to participate in the American dream, which meant leaving the ghetto for the suburbs. In the 1950s Latinos—first Puerto Ricans, then Dominicans—began filling up the tenements that the Jews had once occupied and taking over the garment-center sweatshop jobs.
José Reyes and Herman Vargas, young Dominicans and cousins, were part of the new wave of immigration to the Lower East Side and therefore part of the new labor force as well. Their first jobs at Russ & Daughters were in the kitchen, peeling onions, pickling herrings, and washing dishes—clearly not what they had come to America for. But they did their jobs exceptionally well and with a positive attitude and spirit. About two years after I took over the business, I had finally had it with the motley crew of lox-slicing prima donna countermen that I had inherited. One day, in a fit of pique, I brought José and Herman out from the kitchen and put them behind the counter. Whatever the motivation,
it was a bold move: placing Latinos behind the smoked-fish counter in a traditional Jewish appetizing store had never been done before. This was cutting-edge.
Our customers, the toughest New York has to offer, were not going to make this easy. It was understood that this was a Jewish store, selling Jewish food, prepared and sliced by Jewish employees. That was the culture, a given. Some customers were merely put off, some were offended, and some actually walked out. Their loss. As it turned out, these two men had talents I wasn’t aware of. And as a result, both are still behind the counter and remain integral to the success and atmosphere of Russ & Daughters.
José has hands of gold and slices salmon with the skill of a great surgeon. He says very little but doesn’t need to. Most customers are more than pleased just to stand there and watch this virtuoso at work. Slicing salmon for José is like meditation, and he is recognized by all as the Zen counterman. He is also our chief caviar packer; never is a single egg broken. (“I have José’s hands insured by Lloyd’s of London,” I’ve been known to quip.) His place behind the counter is in the middle of the store. No other counterman would think of encroaching on his space or using his knife. José has been late only once in his thirty-five years at Russ & Daughters, and that was the day of the citywide blackout in 1977. He has also never been sick. He went to the doctor only once, when he got his finger caught and bruised in the showcase door. He comes to work perfectly groomed and leaves the same way even after ten hours or more on his feet behind the counter. For most of the years he has been with us, José wore several—eight to ten—heavy gold chains around his neck. Perhaps this was his way of saying to the world that he had “made it in America.” But now he wears only a single chain with a single charm, the two-letter Hebrew word chai, which means “life.” No doubt he is now secure in his place in the store and in the world. José is devoted to his customers, and they are just as devoted to him.
Russ & Daughters Page 8