Super Deli

Zabar's grosses $12 million a year in New York City.

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Murray Klein and the Zabar brothers don't waste much time dreaming about turning their modest 4,000-square-foot delicatessen into a nationwide chain of franchise outlets -- although they get plenty of offers. Instead, they're busy selling an astonishing array of gourmet delights, staples, and housewares right where Zabar's has always been, in an Upper West Side stretch of Broadway in New York City. Klein insists he and his partners have done just fine by minding their single store: $12 million in sales last year, and something like $15 million this year.

Klein, who manages the store, is by far the most visible of the three partners. He shows up at Zabar's at 6:00 a.m. seven days a week, supervises the housewares buying, writes feisty posters for the windows, hires all the help, and sets up all the merchandise displays.Most days, he also operates one of the cash registers and works as a stock boy in what might be called his "free time."

Klein is also the undisputed showman of the three partners, the other two of whom are sons of Louis and Lillian Zabar, who founded the store in the 1930s. And as those who have strolled through Zabar's can attest, Klein is as talkative as he is visible. One moment, he's reassuring a worried customer that the smoked salmon her husband brought home the other night wasn't cut by machine but by the store's Chinese fish-man, whose slices come off the knife with surgical precision. A moment later, he's urging customers to step right up and examine 48 new duck presses he's unwrapping. The presses sell for a steep $250, but Klein's not worried that this inventory of a fairly esoteric item will gather dust on his shelves. "Only one other merchant in New York has these, and he's charging $400," Klein explains. "He thinks he has a monopoly. Well, I went to France and bought some."

In 1962, when Murray Klein became a partner, Zabar's was an extremely ordinary delicatessen; even the Brie was American. Because Klein was certain that customers wanted showmanship as much as they wanted sustenance, he set about giving Zabar's shoppers both.

He hung pots and pans from the ceiling. He rearranged the store four times a year so that Zabar's, like Bloomingdale's, always kept its customers a little off guard. Soon the shop was taking in $4,500 per square foot of selling space -- the highest sales-to-space volume of any food store in the country. Hollywood celebrities begged the store to air-express goodies to them. Woody Allen compared the skin of one of his lovers to Zabar's Nova Scotia salmon.This kind of attention eventually brought more out-of-towners to the store and led to the creation of a mail-order department.

What Murray Klein needed, though, was somethimg to make even more people aware that Zabar's wasn't just a bagels-and-lox deli. Advertising was "out of the question" -- he didn't believe in it -- but controversy wasn't. Still, Klein had to wait until 1975 to become embroiled in a really good public fight.

His adversary was the manufacturer of the Cuisinart food processor, then the latest must-have piece of gourmet kitchenware. At Bloomingdale's and many other stores, these machines were selling for $180. Klein began selling them for $135. Cuisinarts promptly cut off Zabar's supply.

Undaunted, Klein assembled a fresh supply by ordering one or two Cuisinarts from dozens of distributors and offering them for sale, one to a customer, at $135. By noon of the first day, Zabar's was out of Cuisinarts and the store had issued 962 rainchecks.

How to fill those orders? No problem -- for Murray Klein Zabar's sued Cuisinarts Inc. and Bloomingdale's for restraint of trade. Zabar's lawyers suggested that $5 million in damages would be a fair settlement. Not surprisingly, the case was settled out of court and Zabar's got its Cuisinarts. "I still lose $5 on each one," Klein says, "but that's fine. It doesn't mean anything to me to lose a few thousand dollars to make a point."

The point in this case was that Zabar's housewares are perhaps an even better bargain than its fish. (As Murray Klein doesn't hesitate to tell astounded visitors, not a nickel's profit is derived from the 1,200 pounds of smoked salmon the store sells each week.) Zabar's is the largest importer of copper pots in this country, and does a $200,000-per-year business in discounted copperware alone. It sells more espresso makers in a year than all its New York City competitors -- well over 1,000, with some costing as much as $1,000. And Zabar's has sold more than 10,000 Sanyo food processors in the last three years. Yet only one product, a coffee grinder manufactured by North American Philips Corp., has been deemed worthy of the official Zabar's label; Murray Klein is so confident of its superiorty, he orders 20,000 at a clip.

Klein's refusal to make a profit on the smoked salmon, the fifth best-selling item in the store, is characteristic of Zabar's policy of never compromising quality for profit. Co-owner Saul Zabar, who supervises the fish department, wouldn't have it any other way. Saul also would not dream of selling any fish he hasn't personally selected, so several times each week he journeys to smoke-houses in Brooklyn, tastes every fish he buys, and pays top dollar for his selections. He does this to make certain he's getting not only the freshest fish available, but that it's salmon caught by hook instead of in nets. He says that fish caught in nets try to fight their way free and, in the process, burn off much of their flavorful fat.

Then there are the fish-cutters. Like all Zabar's employees, they're paid salaries far above minimum wage.While these virtuosos slice off every bit of fish that can't be consumed before weighing an order, they also tease, cajole, and insult the buyer. And when they decide a particular customer is worthy of some sustained banter, they'll simply ignore the waiting mob behind him or her.

Connoisseurs who could find equally tasty salmon at a less crowded deli a few blocks away won't. They come to watch Sam Cohen and his cronies -- some of whom are 35-year veterans of Zabar's -- put on the best show not playing on a Broadway stage. Like Bloomingdale's, Zabar's has loyal customers who seem to find a deep and personal satisfaction in the way the store does business. Consequently, they take an almost indecent pleasure in Zabar's success. Shopping there is as much a part of their lifestyle as their morning job.

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