The Jewish Deli: A Deep History of Pastrami, Pickles, and the Pursuit of the Perfect Sandwich

A Church of Cured Meat

The first thing that hits you is the smell. Before you see the counter, before you read the menu, before the man behind the slicer asks “what’ll it be?” — the smell arrives: smoked meat, garlic, brine, rye bread, and something ineffable that might be a hundred years of rendered fat soaking into the walls.

The Jewish deli — the real thing, not the supermarket brand — is one of the most important culinary institutions in American history. It fed immigrants. It shaped a city. It gave the world pastrami on rye, the egg cream, the half-sour pickle, and the concept of a sandwich so tall it requires a structural engineer to eat. And for a while, it almost disappeared.

This is the story of the Jewish deli — its rise, its glory, its decline, and its unlikely revival.

The Immigrant Roots

The Jewish deli emerged from the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the late 19th century, when millions of Eastern European Jews crowded into the tenements of New York. These immigrants brought with them the food traditions of the shtetl: cured and smoked meats (a necessity before refrigeration), pickled vegetables, rye bread, and a deep understanding of what to do with the cheaper cuts of beef.

The word “delicatessen” comes from the German Delikatessen, meaning “delicacies” or “fine foods.” German Jews established the first delis in New York in the mid-1800s, but it was the wave of Eastern European immigration from the 1880s onward that created the deli culture we recognize today.

The early delis were practical. They served food that was cheap, filling, and familiar to immigrants who worked brutal hours in sweatshops and factories. Corned beef, pastrami, tongue, chopped liver — these were not luxury items. They were survival food, made extraordinary by craft and care.

Katz’s Delicatessen, which opened on the Lower East Side in 1888, is the most famous survivor of this era. Its slogan — “Send a salami to your boy in the Army” — dates from World War II, when the deli shipped meat to Jewish servicemen overseas. Katz’s is still open, still hand-slicing pastrami, still operating with the ticket system it has used for over a century.

The Golden Age

The golden age of the Jewish deli ran from roughly the 1920s through the 1960s. During this period, New York alone had thousands of delis — not dozens, not hundreds, but thousands. Every neighborhood had at least one. Some blocks had three.

The great names of this era became legendary:

• Carnegie Deli (opened 1937, closed 2016) — Famous for sandwiches so enormous they were essentially a challenge. The Carnegie’s pastrami was piled six inches high.
• 2nd Avenue Deli (opened 1954) — Founded by Abe Lebewohl, who was beloved in the community and whose murder in 1996 was a citywide tragedy. The deli continues under family management at a new location.
• Stage Deli (opened 1937, closed 2012) — The rival to Carnegie, located across the street, with sandwiches named after celebrities.
• Russ & Daughters (opened 1914) — Technically an “appetizing store,” not a deli (it serves fish and dairy, not meat), but an essential part of the same tradition. Known for its smoked salmon, cream cheese, and herring.

Outside New York, Jewish delis flourished in every American city with a significant Jewish population: Shapiro’s in Indianapolis, Langer’s in Los Angeles (which some argue has better pastrami than Katz’s — fighting words), Manny’s in Chicago, Schwartz’s in Montreal.

Pastrami vs. Corned Beef

The central theological dispute of the Jewish deli world: pastrami or corned beef?

Both start with beef brisket — the same cut, from the chest of the cow. Both are cured in a salt brine. After that, the paths diverge:

Corned beef is simmered or braised after curing. The result is tender, salty, pink, and relatively simple in flavor. It is the workhorse of the deli sandwich — reliable, honest, no surprises.

Pastrami takes the additional steps of rubbing the cured brisket with a spice blend (black pepper, coriander, garlic, paprika, and sometimes mustard seed) and then smoking it for hours before a final steaming. The result is more complex — peppery, smoky, with a distinctive dark crust (the “bark”) and a pink smoke ring beneath.

In New York, pastrami traditionally reigns supreme. On rye bread. With spicy brown mustard. A pickle on the side. No mayo. (This is not negotiable. Mayonnaise on pastrami is a violation of something deeper than kashrut — it is a violation of taste.)

The Supporting Cast

The pastrami or corned beef gets the headline, but a great deli is an ensemble:

• Rye bread — Seeded or unseeded, the bread must be sturdy enough to hold the meat without dissolving but yielding enough to compress under a good bite. Commercial rye is not the same. Real deli rye has a chewiness and a sourness that factory bread cannot replicate.

• Pickles — The pickle plate is the deli’s opening act. Half-sours (bright, crunchy, garlicky) and full-sours (vinegary, funky, softer) arrive at the table unbidden, a gift from the house. A deli without a good pickle is a deli in name only.

• Coleslaw — Creamy or vinegar-based, piled on the plate or layered into the sandwich.

• Knishes — Pastry-wrapped packets of seasoned potato (or sometimes kasha, or meat), fried or baked. The knish is the deli’s carb delivery system.

• Matzo ball soup — The Jewish penicillin. A golden chicken broth with a fluffy (or dense — another debate) matzo ball floating in it. Served in nearly every Jewish deli, though it is not a deli food per se.

• Egg cream — A fountain drink made with chocolate syrup (Fox’s U-Bet, traditionally), cold milk, and seltzer. Contains neither eggs nor cream. The name is a mystery. The drink is perfect.

The Decline

Starting in the 1960s, the Jewish deli began a long, painful decline. The causes were multiple:

Suburban migration: As American Jews moved from urban neighborhoods to the suburbs, they left behind the walkable deli culture. Suburban strip-mall delis existed, but they lacked the density and character of the urban originals.

Health consciousness: By the 1980s and 1990s, cured meats, high sodium, and animal fats were medical villains. The deli’s menu — pastrami, corned beef, chopped liver, schmaltz — was a cardiologist’s nightmare. Younger, health-conscious Jews avoided the deli or went reluctantly.

Real estate: Urban delis occupied prime real estate. As property values soared, the economics of running a low-margin food business in a high-rent neighborhood became impossible. Landlords could make far more renting to a bank or a Starbucks.

Succession: The original owners — immigrants and their children — aged out of the business. Their children and grandchildren, beneficiaries of the very education that the deli’s income had funded, became doctors and lawyers rather than deli men. The craft — the art of curing, smoking, slicing — was not passed down.

By 2000, the number of Jewish delis in New York had dropped from thousands to dozens. Across the country, the picture was even bleaker. The Jewish deli seemed headed for extinction.

The Revival

And then, unexpectedly, the deli came back.

Starting in the 2010s, a new generation of deli owners — many of them young, many of them not from deli families — began opening delis with a mix of nostalgia and innovation:

• Mile End (Brooklyn, opened 2010) — Brought Montreal-style smoked meat to New York, with a hipster aesthetic and a commitment to artisanal production.
• Russ & Daughters Cafe (opened 2014) — The legendary appetizing store expanded into a full sit-down restaurant on the Lower East Side, introducing a new generation to smoked fish and babka.
• Wise Sons (San Francisco) — Brought Jewish deli culture to the Bay Area with house-cured pastrami and matzo ball soup.
• Wexler’s (Los Angeles) — A new-school deli in the Grand Central Market, serving hand-sliced pastrami with serious craft credentials.

The revival delis share certain qualities: they take the craft seriously (curing and smoking in-house, using quality ingredients), they honor the tradition while adapting it (some offer vegetarian options, some use heritage breeds, some experiment with global flavors), and they understand that the deli is not just about food — it is about culture, memory, and identity.

David Sax’s 2009 book “Save the Deli” helped catalyze this revival, documenting the decline of Jewish delis across North America and making the case for their cultural importance. The book became a rallying cry.

More Than a Sandwich

The Jewish deli was never just a place to eat. It was a community center, a business meeting room, a first-date destination, and a grief counselor (nothing heals like a bowl of matzo ball soup). It was the place where immigrant parents took their American-born children, where deals were made over corned beef, where you went after a funeral and before a wedding.

The deli embodied something about Jewish life in America that is hard to articulate but easy to feel: the warmth, the noise, the generosity, the appetite — for food, for life, for argument, for more. A good deli is not quiet. A good deli is not polite. A good deli puts too much meat on your sandwich, brings pickles you did not order, and charges you for being alive and hungry in a complicated world.

That spirit — abundant, irreverent, deeply caring beneath the gruff exterior — is worth preserving. The revival is a start. The pastrami is as good as ever. And the pickles are still free.