“There's no checklist. You kind of make your own checklist.”

What are your hours now?

Monday through Friday, 6am to 6pm. Weekends 8 to 4. Tuesdays we're closed. When we first started, the first couple months, we were seven days a week. It being a close family business, it's the same people in here almost every day. I realized they needed a day. I needed a day to do admin stuff, stuff for the business itself. Of all the days, Tuesday is usually the slowest, so I chose Tuesday.

Eventually I would love for this place to be 24/7 for the city. I think the city needs something like that. But that's definitely in the future. I gotta ramp up the team before I can do that.

Westword called it an East Coast style deli. How do you define that?

It's just the way things are made. The style of the meatball parm, the chicken parm, the way we do breakfast. The made-to-order aspect of it. The bacon, egg and cheese with an over easy egg on it. All the family is from New York, that's where the roots of the deli are from. But New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Philly, they all might be doing something slightly different, and it's all kind of similar. So I didn't want to label it as just a New York deli. It's the East Coast vibe. I think it's really the made-to-order aspect. The flat top grill is a big part of it.

A lot of people, when they walk in, right away they're like, oh, this feels so East Coast. And to me it's hard to even see what they're seeing. But I'm glad I could portray that.

You grew up in Florida though.

Born in Florida, lived there all my life. We used to go up to New York on visits and I always remember going to the deli for a breakfast sandwich. It was always the best. I would look forward to going to New York just for that.

I think a lot of it does have to do with nostalgia. And that's part of what the deli is. A lot of these items are classic items that have been around for years, but you're not really seeing them on menus too much anymore, because everybody's trying to do something different, do something fancy. A lot of people are looking for these simple items. No frills. That's what I went for. We are what we are. There's no smoke and mirrors. We use Boar's Head meats only.

How'd you find your distributors?

Luckily for me, a lot of them stop by personally to sell me. Every distributor wants every new restaurant's business. They start to see activity, and if I'm not here, they'll leave a card on the door. They're very persistent. Sometimes to the point where it's like, yo, leave me alone.

I sat down with every distributor, broke down prices, quality, brands. There's certain brands I wanted that are just classic names, like Hellmann's. They've all tried to get me to use their meats, and I'm like, I'm not going away from Boar's Head. So then it comes down to what distributor has what you're looking for, the quality and the price. It blew my mind how many people out here have no idea what Boar's Head is.

What were you doing before this?

Two years ago I was just a normal guy serving and bartending. I've been in the industry my whole life, mostly front of house, but some kitchen experience. Out here I was doing the same thing, working in restaurants. And then I had a life event happen. Something small, but it was almost needed. It gave me the push.

One of my friends told me what you're doing in your 30s career-wise usually translates into the rest of your life. I was like, well, if I go get hired at another restaurant, I'm probably going to be there at least another five years before I even start to think I'm tired of this. And then I'll be close to 40. I gotta do something now or I might not ever. So it was now or never.

And everything kind of just fell into place. The way I found this space, the loan, the help I received from random people I met, from fellow business owners that own bars downtown. It felt like it was meant to be.

Almost everyone here is family. How does that work?

We only have one person that's not family. It took a moment to find a good guy like that.

We are a loud family. We definitely butt heads. But we all love each other so much that at the end of the day it's all good. It's definitely tough though. I can't, or don't want to, or just naturally don't talk to them like a normal employee. Instead of, hey, go sweep the floor, it's more of, hey, can you sweep the floor for me? It's more of an asking. I want to keep things good between the family, and not seem like I'm this boss making my family work. We're all in this together. They put in a lot of hustle. I'm eternally grateful to my family.

What's something you didn't prepare for?

Food costs. The margins are very, very slim, and I've already witnessed that myself in the first six months. Seeing how what happens in the world affects food costs. Florida had the deep freeze, California had cold weather, and then Mexico. That's where all the tomatoes come from, those three places. Tomatoes went from very cheap per tomato to triple or quadruple. I didn't even prepare for that mentally. You think you have one price, tomatoes are costing me 25 cents, and now they're costing me two dollars.

What's the hardest part right now?

Running out of time. That is the hardest thing every day. Not only am I cooking, I'm cleaning, I'm stocking, I'm ordering inventory, I'm paying the bills, payroll, taxes, online marketing. You're doing every single thing. Until you can afford enough payroll where I'm not cooking, I'm not doing employee things and I can be doing business things. I think that's the hardest thing of any new business, not even a restaurant, where the owner is doing all the labor and all the admin work.

Yelp is always calling me, like, hey, let's get you more customers. And I'm like, yeah, I do need more customers, but I'm already stretched thin in the kitchen. If I get more customers it might just crash the kitchen, and now everybody's getting bad service or bad food, and that might ruin people coming back. That's why we're not even online yet for delivery or carry out. It's all in person. I didn't want to put too much on just to get more money in the restaurant's pocket. Trying to grow intentionally and not just open the floodgates and screw ourselves later down the road.

What's the part that makes it worth it?

Being able to make good food for people. Having the brick and mortar for people to come create memories, or bring back memories to something they haven't had in so long. To me it's so simple. It's a bacon, egg and cheese with a runny egg on a kaiser roll. We see it every day. But this person, they've lived here eight years, they never made it back to New York, they haven't had that sandwich in eight years. They take one bite and it brings back so many memories. They come back and thank us like we did something so special. I love it.

We've had someone come in this whole week, four days in a row, for egg salad. It's so simple. But it must be something nostalgic to them that they can't find anywhere else the way we make it. Maybe their mom made it just like that. Most of the recipes are my mom's recipes. Simple family recipes. Just trying not to do too much.

You worked at Disney for a long time. Does that show up here?

1,000%. When I was a server, a bartender, it was that table, those guests. At Disney you gotta create memories, you gotta create special moments. It's a different level of service. And Florida in general is so commercial, so many tourists, the standards are just so high. Being a part of that for so long, it's in my blood now. I like to host. I like to show a good time. Doing that myself in my own place is a good feeling.

The last place I served at, a couple years ago, we had this bartender everybody was like, oh my gosh, she's the best bartender I've ever seen. And I wasn't knocking her, she is great. But she was from Florida. In Florida, she's just another Florida bartender. She's normal. Here, she's amazing.

What’s life look like five years from now?

I would hope to have either a second or third location. And be at a point where I'm just running them, managing as the boss. Even if I'm in there day to day, making sure everything's running right, but not actually doing the physical. That's a big dream for most business owners. A lot of restaurant owners are working in their own restaurant for 20 years doing everything.

I've gone from 20, 30 hours a week to over 100 hours a week, making less money than I've ever made in my life. But it's still more rewarding. It still feels good.