Your guests define 'value' by the totality of the experience: the service, the décor, the food and its flavors and aromas and the cost: all details that create a memory. The most memorable experiences come from an organized, well-rehearsed and communicated performance. Great 'word of mouth' is built note by note, scene by scene, act by act, so that by the end of the visit your guest walks away 'wowed'. Or bored. Or, worse of all, disgusted. It's your choice.

You stand amazed by a dining room, filled with a veritable cross section of America talking...well actually yelling at one another in mostly affectionate displays of the idiosyncratic game of love, New York Style. The atmosphere is replete with the sounds and smells of the ritualistic "breaking of bread". Slack jawed and mesmerized until a guy behind the take-out line calls out, "What'll it be?" I look through the stainless steel shelving at a Chinese fella, red with effort and wet with perspiration. The Second Avenue Deli may specialize in classic Jewish delicatessen food, but the United Nations works here. Even that is part of the story. Every ethnic group works shoulder to shoulder. In this place, that is both literal and figurative. You could say that the inclusive hiring is just the natural reaction to the changing labor market, but this group is just too diverse. I believe it is a brilliant stroke of melting-pot marketing. And regardless of the race or ethnic background, they all share the same attitude best described as: hospitably no-nonsense. They communicate the remarkable dual message of "Hurry Up and Thank You". It takes a special gift to make you feel that you owe it to them to get on with it. So you step up to the counter before someone else elbows in. Here it is: "You moves or you lose."

"One pound of brisket, please." I ask, liberated out of my WASP born reticence. "Good choice." my guy reassures me. As I wait and watch them slice the moist, warm roast, I am distracted by a guy who may be the owner or just another character explaining to an elderly lady customer just how the system works. "Darling, I said '$45' a whole salami. Believe me, I know these things. I am the pricer." The woman bargains some more, 'hondling' in the vernacular, but the gent, in a tiny black leather fedora and a graying ponytail will have none of it. "$45. Finished."

I turn back and become aware of the stacks of deli accoutrements reaching to the ceiling. It dawns on me. A wall of reinforced deli groceries protects the guys prepping my order! This is a new kind of war. Jars of sweet-spicy mustard, bags of rugalech, loaves of challah bread, to-go containers, plastic utensils, take-out tins provide the deli-soldiers with just enough of a slit to see the customers and be able to hand you a couple of slices of product while you wait. I get my two slabs of brisket, laid out on deli paper. My guy nods as if to say, "Go on, eat." And I do. Heaven is here on Second Avenue and 10th Street. He winks and nods again, sharing a telepathic "It's good, huh?" I nod back, "Oh my god."

I pay a fortune. No discounts here, no cheapies and no problem. They could probably charge admission and I would troop down like a million other starving souls. Every second is a show, unique and unto itself. What a place. Go. Eat. Enjoy.

In the next issue we discuss The Best Kind of 'Buzz'. --> GO

 

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