How a Legendary NYC Deli and Grocery Store Sells 4,000 Pounds of Fish per Week — The Experts

Zabar’s first opened in 1934, serving New Yorkers deli classics like smoked fish, bagels, and incredibly popular coffee. Take a look inside the operation with Scott Goldshine, who has been managing the shop for the past 30 years.

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Credits:
Producer: Daniel Geneen
Directors: Daniel Geneen, Connor Reid
Camera: Connor Reid, Nick Mazzocchi, Murilo Ferreira
Editor: Lucy Morales Carlisle

Executive Producer: Stephen Pelletteri
Supervising Producer, Operations: Stefania Orrù
Supervising Producer, Development: Gabriella Lewis
Audience Engagement: Avery Dalal
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For more episodes of ‘The Experts’, click here: https://trib.al/C0ssRu9

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– Zabar’s… it’s almost a worldwide landmark at this point. We get tourists from all over the world. The store has a big emotional place in a lot of people’s hearts. For a lot of people, this is their daily grocery store. So it’s Tuesday at around nine o’clock and every Tuesday we get our coffee delivery, which you can see over here. We sell about 8,000 pounds of coffee a week. That’s between mail order and retail. That’s a lot of f****** coffee to sell for one store.

Not a chain, this is just one location, one store. After the coffee’s in around 10 o’clock, Kenny, who’s the coffee manager and store manager, along with Annie Zabar, they cup the coffee. This is the Tuesday morning ritual that’s been going on, probably longer than I’m working here. – She’s breaking the coffee.

We’re just checking out the smell of the coffee. Generally, you can get a sense of anything’s problematic. – This is what Saul Zabar used to do every week for years and years and years. He’s 95, so he’s not doing that. Although there are times he’s here and he does help.

But this is the one thing that I can tell you that happens every single Tuesday at the same time at Zabar’s is this. One of the reasons people keep coming back for everything as well as coffee is they know it’s gonna taste the same every week.

– Yeah, it’s just the way it is here. – There’s never been, ever… – I don’t think we’ve ever missed, ever. – It doesn’t matter if it’s Christmas Eve, it doesn’t matter what’s going on that Tuesday, it gets done no matter what. – All right. This is good. I’m gonna let the guys know downstairs. – One of the first places I check when I come here in the morning is the catering department. There’s usually a lot of catering orders in the morning for breakfast orders and early lunch.

Since catering is also a big part of the business here, and most of these orders are expensive, I’m very involved with the catering. I have great people. They’re all fantastic, but I still stick my nose into it frequently because I don’t like the phone calls when there’s a screw up.

– Saul Zabar has always been the buyer of the fish, but we have a fish buyer that he’s trained for years. His name is Tomas. He’s Dominican, but he’s buying the smoked fish for the greatest Jewish smoked fish store in the world. – So this is Tomas from Zabar’s.

He comes in every week and looks at the whitefish and some of the other smoked fish goods that we prepare for Zabar’s and chooses the right mix of products for his customers. So these whitefish have been brined, which is a salt water solution. Now they’re being hung up on these sticks,

Which will be transferred onto the trolleys for smoking. So once they’re finished loading the fish onto the trolleys, they’ll get pushed into an oven. And this is what the whitefish look like when they’re finished. Beautiful golden color. – [Scott] We pick the fish that we want.

Acme smokes it in a way that we like it to be smoked. There’s a certain taste that Saul likes, which Tomas obviously knows. – Alright, so now these are the jumbo whitefish that we have. These, you want to have some fat in the back of the fish and the belly.

– Good belly. The whitefish is too big like that. Use it for the counter. But I have a medium whitefish and use it for the salad. A little bit more flavor. I pay 800, 900 pounds every week, regular time, holidays, forget about it. (laughs) So now it’s ready for me.

He’ll mark it for Zabar’s and tomorrow deliver it for me. – So Wednesday he goes to the smokehouse and he picks out the fish. Thursday the fish comes in. In this area over here, all of the fish salads are made in this part of the kitchen right over here.

How many years are you here now? – 34 – Yuri’s here 34 years. He runs the the fish salad department. All the fish, our appetizing-related salads, whitefish salad, tuna salad, egg salad, chicken salad, et cetera, has always been under the direction of Saul Zabar.

These are Saul’s recipes that have been 50 years old. – Should be a little bit chunky. Yeah, when the people eat, they feel, you know, they feel fish. I can’t break it a lot, you know. Should be small, chunky. Yeah. – Same recipe.

Saul still comes back here most days, every day he tastes. – A little bit salty, but a good flavor. Now it’s done. I’m gonna send to the packing room. They’ll put it in the containers and we sell it up front. – This is the whitefish from Yuri. This is how we do, half a pound. After we pack it, we seal it with the container. Then the final job is pricing. All day, I pack chicken salad, egg salad, baked salmon salad, shrimp salad, crabmeat salad. – One of the busier counters at Zabar’s, especially

During lunch and certainly on the weekend breakfast is our smoked fish department. These guys are experts. They’re the best slicers in the city. They slice paper thin. This is Devin, one of the stars. – How you guys doing? – Who uh, is charming, handsome, and he knows how to slice fish.

What he’s doing is an art form and not everybody can do it. I can’t do it. – [Devin] You got a lot of people that are particular, they want see-through slices. Thin, thin, thin. They don’t want small slices. Just depends. Everyone is always let’s say, showing out for their guests in the house.

So they always want perfect slices. It’s kind of like a steak. If you wind up cooking the steak too long it gets rubbery, right? If you cut it too thick, it doesn’t taste right. They want that thin, thin slice that just melts in your mouth.

– [Scott] This counter has the longest wait time of any counter. You can’t slice faster than what they’re doing. If you want it to be paper thin, it’s all done by hand. You can see it’s an art form. So there are people that get pissed because they have to wait too long.

But I can’t rush ’em. Another big part of our business is prepared foods. We have a kitchen staff of 35 people. This whole crew of guys has been over here 25 to 30 years. Anthony makes the soup. How many years you’re making the soup now? – 25. – 25 years. He’s glued to that kettle.

Kitchen’s open seven days and the variety of things, and we could have 30 different soups out in the refrigerator at any given time. But about a year and a half ago, the chef came up with an idea for roasted corn and tomato salad, which is very simple. It’s basically corn and tomato,

A couple other things, and it blew up. He is making what’s become one of the more popular dishes here at Zabar’s, which is a roast corn and tomato salad. How many times a week do you do this now? – Approximately I’d say maybe three to four times a week

We’re already doing this salad. – That’s a lot. He’s preparing the corn on the cob. They boil it. They char it. – So I use a little bit of vinegar, pepper. Try not to put too much. This is called Rafi’s sugar.

He gets mad when you take his sugar and use it all up. That’s what I do when he’s not here, I take all his ingredients. This is Rafi behind me. And one more just in case. It’s all right. When we finish the process, we send it next door,

They pack it up, and then it goes straight to the shelves, straight to your home. – [Scott] Could be out of every member of this staff, he talks more shit than anybody. – But I can’t help you. – And you can ask these guys over here

’cause they, I promise you they’re gonna guarantee it too. – I try to stay quiet, but it’s so hard to do, especially when Scott’s around me, I can’t stay quiet. I have to talk. No, I don’t make fun of him. He’s my dad. I love him.

– That’s okay. And I make fun of him too. I love him. He’s an asshole sometimes. But I love him. – That’s what I do. Listen, they’re my assholes. It’s okay. They’re all right. One of the things that has always made Zabar’s special are the people that work here.

And this is really, we call it the world’s biggest mom-and-pop store ’cause we really are a family. This is Naomi, this is my assistant, who’s been here over 15 years. That is her sister over there, Ashley, who’s also been here a number of years as well.

The morning girls are the girls that have been here forever. Rumi’s been here over 20 years. (register beeps) This is Millie. In addition to being one of my closest friends, she’s been here 42 years. 230 people that work here. So the Zabar family, myself, you know, there’s an, we feel there’s an obligation.

It’s a lot easier when you’re working with people that care. So you want to do things, you want to do things for them. You know they’re gonna be there for you. That’s hugely important ’cause the store doesn’t run without them. How old were you when you started, 16? – About.

– And I gotta tell you, from the first day that he started, he breaks my balls and his balls. – The little guy? – It’s not breaking, it’s just– – No, it’s breaking. – Telling the truth. – He’s a little guy but for a little guy he’s got a lot of angst.

– (laughs) This is true. He’s one angry little f***, but he’s my f***, I love him. – Love you too. – We all spend more time here than we do with our families. So it’s around 11:30 in the morning. Now we come over to the warehouse.

This is our mail order warehouse over here. Zabar’s has a very large mail order business. They run this whole operation over here and during the holidays, this is a f****** zoo. I don’t know how they do it. I check on ’em. They don’t need me to check on ’em.

– Shipping nationwide, United States, Puerto Rico, Hawai’i, California, anywhere. I’ve seen packages go to Montana. People love Zabar’s everywhere. During the holidays, all this is full of boxes and UPS is nonstop just coming inside and out, filling up a trailer outside. It gets crazy.

We do about 10,000 a day on a nice holiday Monday night. – One of the things, and one of the perks of my job is I get to sample stuff. Right now I have with me Eric Newman. One of the things I like doing, I would rather do,

Is I get to sample food, which is always fun. Eric is a long time vendor of ours. And now we’re gonna look at these pastrami egg rolls and corned beef egg rolls. And assuming we like them and the price is right… – It will be. – …then we’ll sell ’em.

We don’t sell anything unless it’s tasted and it’s gotta pass our test. Not bad. You have to understand. You never tell a guy like this that it’s the greatest thing you ever ate, ’cause then he’s gonna screw you on the price. So you always kind of– – Beat me up a little bit.

– “Good. It’s all right.” You know, after he leaves, he and I may talk and say, “This is the best shit we ever ate.” But never in front of his face. By the way, Candido is the deli manager. He’s got better taste than I do.

I respect what he says sometimes more than what I say. I may like something, he may pull me aside and say, “It sucks.” I let him make the final decision when it comes to that. – It’s amazing dealing with them ’cause the money comes like clockwork, which is awesome.

And they’re just, the numbers are always great. They just, the volume is just tremendous. Always big orders, no butts. It’s- – Oh, that’s bullshit. There is some butts. I mean, we can be a pain in the ass. – High standards, which is, which is a good thing.

– I’m not a big paperwork guy. I don’t like it. It’s very important for me, which is one of the reasons I’m here on the weekends, is to be downstairs on the floor when it’s busy. – [Cashier] Thank you so much. – Ready? How can I help you?

– [Scott] It doesn’t matter what else I’m doing, when it’s busy, which is lunchtime or dinner time, the weekends, then I’m downstairs. I’m on the floor. It’s important to be on the floor to make sure everybody’s doing what they’re supposed to, to be there to answer any problems. The staff sees me there.

– There you go, love. Have a good one. All right? – It’s okay with the bagels? I work with them pushing baskets, throwing out the garbage. I learned that from, Mr. Zabar always did that. Mr. Klein used to do that. We’re a team. – We cannot get tongue in Boston! Why doesn’t Boston have tongue? I have to come all the way to New York to get tongue. Why? I come all the way from Boston to shop at Zabar’s because we love the tongue. It’s the best in the world, number one.

And it’s the best whitefish salad, better than in Boston. So we come all the way to New York to shop at Zabar’s. – Customers like this, that’s why we’re still in business. There is definitely a pressure to keep this place running for all of us.

A, we all want a job. B, this is an institution. I’m proud of what everybody’s worked together and built. It’s very important to me that this continues as well as the Zabar family wants it to continue. And I feel the pressure every moment that I walk in the store.

– Don’t you love Zabar’s? It’s the best. – This store has meant so much to so many people. I’m talking to people now that I used to carry around, you know, when they were two years old and go feed ’em fruit salad. And it’s like, “You remember me?

30 years ago, you used to drag me around the store and you know, feed me.” That’s cool. And this store means a lot to a lot of people. It’s our job to keep it going.