• First, our landlord at Buttonville Airport decided to renovate the lobby of the airport.  Our restaurant is in the lobby so this renovation involved us.  The landlord hired Spinning Wheel Design led by Peter Tillmann to do the redesign.  In reviewing our current look, Peter made it very clear that we needed a change, not only at Buttonville but at all our restaurants.  Peter was straight and to the point.  Our restaurants were a hodgepodge of colours and posters that distracted customer attention from the most important  element, our food.  Peter wanted our seating area and counters to be subdued with white walls, white menu boards and pictures of our food to accentuate our fresh food on display. 
• Second, we began an agency review to help us determine what direction our marketing should head.  We spoke to a few agencies.  Each suggested that we remove all of our various posters and menus from our restaurants because they were distracting attention from our food.  They recommended white menu boards that focused on our food.  This common theme intrigued us.
• Third, our restaurant at Commerce Court was significantly underperforming.  We needed a dramatic increase in sales.  We thought that it might make sense to encourage customers to design their own salads rather than choose from the 10 – 15 premixed salads we were offering.  This is the way we have always presented our sandwiches to customers but we had never applied this to our salads.  We picked as many vegetables, cheeses, proteins and seeds that we could fit into our displays, 54 in all, and let customers choose what they wanted.  We were amazed at what happened!  Customers said that it was like being a kid in a candy store, they loved the presentation of our fresh food and the freedom to choose what they wanted.  And they loved that no matter what they chose it was always the same price.  Sales sky-rocketed and we realized that we were on to something.  Then we added all of the fresh new items to our sandwiches and encourage customers not to have just a corned beef sandwich with mustard on rye, but rather to choose their fresh sliced bread, then their protein, veggies, sauces and anything else they wanted from our displays.  Sales of sandwiches went crazy.  And for breakfast we promoted grilled cheese sandwiches with 11 freshly sliced breads, 10 cheeses and all of our veggies and meats.  Another home run.

So we brought Spinning Wheel Design on board, hired a new advertising Agency, The AdLib Group, and threw our experience at Commerce Court into the mix.  DRUXY`S Fresh Deli Revolution was born.  A new store design that focused on our food, service that encouraged customers to design their own sandwiches or salads, new marketing that featured our fresh food and even a new logo.  After 33 years we dropped the man and meat logo and replaced it with a clean new logo!

Thinking back, it is hard to believe that over the past 12 months we have totally revamped our 33 year old company.  11 of our restaurants have taken on the new program, 5 more restaurants are being converted each week.  We have 2 new locations coming on stream in May.  Our future has never looked brighter.

The lesson here is that even if you think that change is not necessary, even if you have had long term success, better times are around the corner.  Look outside yourself for fresh ideas and see the greatness that is waiting for you.  The old adage, if you continue to do the same things, you will continue to have the same results has never been truer.  If you do everything differently a whole new world is waiting for you.

By definition deli or delicatessen means “delicacies” or “fine foods”.  The word originated from the Latin delicatus, meaning “giving pleasure, delightful, pleasing”.  For centuries people found great pleasure eating the foods from the delicatessens of Europe and now North America.

In Canada and the United States most delis served sandwiches made to order behind the counter.  They also prepared salads and some ethnic hot foods.  Delicatessens came from a variety of cultural traditions.   Most numerous were Jewish delicatessens, both kosher and “kosher style”.  As a result of this, those that specialized in Italian or German cuisine were called “European Delicatessens.”

When immigrants from Europe settled in Canada and the United States they set up small stores selling pickled and smoked pork and beef.  When Eastern European Jews began immigrating to New York by the thousands in the late 19th century, they carved out their own niche with Pastrami, Corned Beef, Smoked Meat and Salami.  Jewish delis began to predominate.  By the 1930s, New York City alone had at least 1,500 kosher and kosher style delis.

Originally, delis cured their own corned beef and pastrami, made their own pickles and used bread from a neighboring bakery.  Now, few make their own ingredients.   The original deli was a convenience store, a neighborhood grocer, a place to go for sandwich meats and kosher foods.  It was a neighbourhood gathering place.  Each deli had its own personality, a deli shtick (shtick is Yiddish meaning comic theme or gimmick).  Old Jewish delis were famous for their rude waiters, the yelling back and forth behind the counter, the motion and noise of the staff preparing and delivering meals.  Delis had a life and a personality that made them fun.

The best delis had a master cutter, not a slicing machine.  When a brisket of beef was steamed for a long time, as with a good piece of pastrami once it has been cured and smoked, it would tear apart if not cut by hand.  Unfortunately many sandwich shops use a round cut of beef rather than brisket as it is easier to slice and much less expensive.

Today, delis have to face concerns that might have been overlooked in the past.  Cured meats and pickles are delicious, but they are full of salt and fat that makes  them unhealthy.  And preparing foods that meet traditional standards are expensive, a corned beef sandwich can fetch hefty prices of as much as $17.

The pairing of slowly steamed corned beef or pastrami brisket, hot crusty double-baked rye bread infused with caraway seeds and topped with mustard is considered by a true purist to be the perfect sandwich.

DRUXY’S takes pride in its Jewish Deli routes.  We hold to the tradional way of preparing our sandwiches from briskets and slicing steaming meats to order for each sandwich.  We  see fun interaction with customers as key to building a lasting relationship.  And we take pride in the quality of our food and how we prepare it for our customers.    But we are also searching for new, fresh, quality products to compliment our traditional menu to meet the needs of toaday’s customers.

* Information in this bog has come from Wikipedia and the website of David Sax, a real deli fanatic.  David authors a website, www.savethedeli.com and has written a book, Save the Deli, on the decline of the Jewish delicatessen.