deli<\/a>, but also the disappearance of Jewish life in the area.<\/p>\n\u201cI kind of expected it to go sooner or later,\u201d said Aileen Owens, who remembered going to Famous when the Auspitz family ran it over six decades ago. \u201cThere\u2019s nobody around. \u00a0Synagogues and all that stuff, it\u2019s all fading out. They went to the suburbs.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Steve\u2019s account, his father Mike Stein, his brother Arnold and cousin Jack began running the produce concession at the Famous Deli in Philly\u2019s Castor Gardens neighborhood in the late 1950s. Around 1960, they bought the deli from the Auspitz family, which had operated a chain of Philadelphia delis dating to the 1920s.<\/p>\n
Steve and his brother Arnie eventually ran the deli together. As Jewish families moved farther into Northeast Philadelphia, the deli moved as well – first to Krewstown Road in the mid-1970s, eventually having two locations there, and then about 14 years ago to its final location at 1619 Grant Ave.<\/p>\n
If all goes right, Steve\u2019s 57-year-old son Lee hopes to continue the migration and resurrect the family business in the suburbs. Sort of.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m looking to have a place of my own,\u201d said Lee, who started off as an eight-year-old taking out the trash, but would occasionally try to cut the lox when no one was looking. \u201cI have a lot of experience in this business.<\/p>\n
\u201cI call myself multi-talented, not just in the deli business, but in cooking and baking, I would probably downsize and not do fruit and produce like we do here. It\u2019s just not worth it, you know, the space for what you\u2019re paying. I would do a similar situation to here. Deli, prepared foods, a little bit of bakery, a small sit down. But what I\u2019ve told the people that come in here, \u2018You\u2019ll never, ever see some of this product again. And you\u2019ll probably never, ever see these prices ever again.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, he wants his new venture to be affordable.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy father always liked being a people-pleaser,\u201d the younger Stein said. \u201cSo he tries to please people with a price. But that price affects you eventually.\u201d<\/p>\n
Remaining establishments will benefit from the closure<\/p>\n
As for Steve, he wishes his son well, but knows it won\u2019t be the same. \u201cLee wants to try something, but not here,\u201d Stein said.<\/p>\n
He added that some remaining establishments in the wider region – \u201cthey do 90% restaurant and 10% deli, I do 90% deli and 10% restaurant\u201d – will \u201cbenefit from me not being here.\u201d<\/p>\n
One former competitor isn\u2019t so sure. \u201cI\u2019m upset another Jewish deli has closed and he\u2019s been in business a long time and certainly has his whole clientele,\u201d said Michael Young, longtime owner of Ben & Irv\u2019s, a deli restaurant in Huntingdon Valley, a suburb about 20 minutes northwest of Famous. \u201cBut it\u2019s a different world today; a different area. So I don\u2019t know if it will help us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lee Stein said he actually tried to stay put, but needed a little help.\u201cThe real problem is the landlord never took care of the building,\u201d said Lee, who wishes his dad had been more assertive on that front. \u201cI tried to make it work here with them, figuring this would be an easy fix. I asked them for some renovations; to put a new roof on. The roof has several holes in it. When it rains outside, it pours in here. So, I tried to negotiate with them first before I did anything else, but that wasn\u2019t going anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
JTA\u2019s attempts to reach the landlord for comment were unsuccessful. Regardless, Steve Stein, who was forced to close the deli for a short while last year due to health code issues, says he is ready to turn the page.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The first thing he\u2019ll do once things settle down is get therapy on his aching legs. And he\u2019s excited to have more time to devote to his wife of 61 years, Sheila, along with his children, Lee and Mindy, seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. \u201cBut I\u2019ll miss my customers. They\u2019re like family.\u201d<\/p>\n
Already he\u2019s feeling the difference \u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s devastating,\u201d he said on August 24, the day after the store officially closed, amid a final \u201cblowout sale\u201d to get rid of what little was left. \u201cI\u2019m usually the first one in the store.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to be very much missed by me.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s not the only one.<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing lasts forever,\u201d \u00a0said one customer before heading into Famous one last time. \u201cBut it\u2019s very sad.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After running the family deli for several decades, Steve Stein says his 83-year-old legs were telling him it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":276997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4200,6304,113781,15140,116105,25858,69,71,70,66,8576],"class_list":["post-276996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-deli","tag-diaspora","tag-diaspora-jews","tag-jewish","tag-jewish-food","tag-jewish-life","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-united-states","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}