The Other Holidays
At some point when I wasn’t looking, Christmas and New Year’s became Jewish holidays. The same number of customers coming in, the same amount of fish going out. I guess I had my head down, slicing and filleting, when it turned out that you don’t have to be Jewish to love our food.
Here’s the primary difference between Yom Kippur and Christmas: the crowd is much better behaved when buying for Christmas. They are about to engage in celebration, not deprivation. So the mood in the store—shared by customer and counterman—is a happy one. Though the lines and the wait time are just as long, there’s no talk of jumping the line, and no one is due in surgery in an hour. And just for Christmas and New Year’s we have an express line: the caviar express line.
The caviar express line is one of my finest creations, and perhaps one of my more notable legacies. The concept is to thin out the crowded store at Christmas and New Year’s by expediting service to those who are prepared to spend a lot of money on a single small expensive item. Those who want smoked fish, herring, bagels, or all of the above must, as always, take a number and wait. Those who are buying only caviar zip right through on the express line. In my first year of retirement, my emeritus phase, I agreed to run the caviar express line. I also conscripted my new son-in-law, Christopher, to work with me. I no longer had the stamina—physical or mental—to work the counter, i.e., to handle the slicing, filleting, wrapping, packing, and schlepping. Christopher was raised in Ohio, which, correctly or not, I’d always thought of as part of the gastronomic wasteland known as Middle America. He was now in graduate school, studying to be a psychotherapist, and he had only recently learned about the products we carried. So the less-intense experience of the caviar express line was perfect for both of us.
Christopher watched and listened as I quickly moved the line of caviar-only customers, selling kilos, half-kilos, 250-gram tins, and 125-gram tins of American and Siberian osetra, with prices of the half-kilo tins running about a thousand dollars. When asked, I would explain the differences in flavor and texture of the various types of caviar. But it wasn’t necessary to spend a lot of time with each customer because, having spent much of my life in retail, I could usually determine pretty quickly what a particular customer would like and could afford, and I would easily steer him or her to that choice. The customers were thankful for my advice and grateful not to have to wait on the long fish line.
Christopher assisted me with the first ten to fifteen sales by packing the caviar on ice, then in bags, and then ringing up the sale on the register as I moved on to the next customer. Then he stepped in to do the sales part himself, obviously to show me, his new father-in-law, that he could handle the task. I watched as he delivered long speeches extolling the virtues of the less-expensive caviars. I watched as customers whom I judged to be potential buyers of 250-gram tins of osetra bought 50-gram tins of paddlefish instead. He gave too much information, and the longer his monologues grew, the longer and more impatient the caviar express line grew. It was hardly express anymore. I watched, did my own selling, and kept my mouth shut. He was my new son-in-law. His wife—my daughter, Niki—was now running the business.
At some point during the process, as I redoubled my efforts if only to counterbalance my son-in-law’s well-meaning but counterproductive strategy, I watched him wait on a rather distinguished-looking gentleman who asked for several hundred dollars’ worth of osetra caviar. (I subsequently found out that this customer was a principal in a well-known New York art gallery.) The fellow was clearly in a rush and was therefore not subjected to Christopher’s extended monologue. The caviar was brought out and packed on ice, and then I heard the gentleman ask Christopher, almost in a whisper, if it would be possible for him to also buy six plain bagels. Christopher, knowing full well that the caviar express line was only for caviar sales, looked over to me to see if I would grant his customer some papal in-law dispensation. I did. The customer was extremely pleased and thankful. Then, as he turned to leave, he said, “I only bought the caviar so that I wouldn’t have to take a number and wait on line for the bagels.”
On another occasion, one young man specifically waited for me to serve him on the caviar express line. He wanted my attention, which at that moment was divided among four or five customers. He offered to show me some magic tricks. I wasn’t interested. I had to keep the caviar express line moving. He began doing the tricks anyway. He shoved a regular quarter into my hand, closed my fist, and the quarter bent like a pretzel. I was amazed. I started paying attention to him. Then he asked me to give him a twenty-dollar bill.
“No chance,” I said. “I know you just want to beat me out of the twenty.”
“No, seriously,” he replied. “You’ve got to see this trick.”
“Well, what’s the harm,” I said as I handed him a twenty-dollar bill. “If you steal my twenty, I’ll just tack it onto your caviar bill.”
And then, with some quick hand movements, my twenty did in fact disappear.
“I knew you’d do that. I can’t believe I’m such a sucker.”
“Look under your wristwatch band.”
And there it was. I was dumbfounded. I had never seen such an amazing trick, even on TV.
“You know what?” I said. “You can give up your day job, whatever it is, and do magic for a living.” I really meant it. This guy was good. There were some snickers from the crowd that had formed around him. Then Josh pulled me aside and told me that David Blaine was already one of the world’s greatest magicians. David Blaine? Who knew?
And then there was the fellow standing quietly in the crowd.
“What do you do for a living?” I asked him as he waited for his number to be called. It’s my normal opening gambit, a way to start the schmooze, and I’m always interested in what our customers do and where they live.
“I’m a writer.”
“Oh, really?” I said, with the bravado of a newly published author. “Have you ever been published?” My one essay had recently appeared in a book called Gastropolis.
“I’ve done eight books with HarperCollins.”
I was quickly put in my place. “What are your eight books about?” I asked, a bit more humbly.
“Sex.”
There was no comeback for me here. This schmooze was over. I moved on to the next waiting customer.
Potato Latkes
MAKES 18 TO 20 LATKES
2½ pounds Idaho russet potatoes 1 medium onion
2 large eggs, separated
½ cup finely chopped scallions (white and green parts)
¼ cup potato flour or matzo meal
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2 teaspoons kosher salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon baking powder
Canola or vegetable oil, for frying
Sour cream, for serving
Applesauce, for serving
Place a large strainer over a large bowl. Using the large holes of a box grater, grate some of the potatoes, followed by some of the onion, into the strainer. Repeat until all of the potatoes and onion are used up. (Alternating the potatoes and onion prevents the potatoes from discoloring.) Squeeze or press out as much of the liquid as possible. Allow the accumulated liquid to stand in another bowl for 2 to 3 minutes. Pour off the watery part but reserve the thick, starchy paste at the bottom.
Transfer the potato-onion mixture to a clean large bowl. Add the starchy paste, egg yolks, scallions, potato flour or matzo meal, butter, salt, pepper, and baking powder and mix well. In a separate medium bowl, beat the egg whites with an electric mixer until they hold stiff, shiny peaks. Fold the egg whites into the potato mixture.
Heat a thin layer of oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Working in batches, scoop ¼ cup of the potato mixture into the pan for each pancake. Flatten gently with a spatula. Fry until the pancakes are crisp and golden brown, about 4 minutes per side.
Serve immediately or reheat in
a 350°F oven for about 6 minutes. Serve with sour cream and applesauce.
8
The Business Model
Our Way
“Nem a shmata und vishup da counter,” Grandpa Russ would say in perfect Yinglish. Whether Grandpa Russ was concerned about dirt or about idle hands, “Pick up a rag and wipe off the counter” was Business Rule #1. It was passed down not only along the bloodlines to his daughters but also to their husbands, who then passed it along to the next generation.
Most people know the old adage “Cleanliness is next to godliness.” But in the Russ family, cleanliness is above godliness. At Russ & Daughters, we were told, “You should be able to eat off the floor.” Our employees have always worn spotless white coats, not aprons, when working behind the counter. White Formica and stainless steel, which were easy to keep clean, were the only acceptable materials for the showcases. Ancillary rules of cleanliness: “Never get caught with your hands in your pockets.” “The only thing that goes into your pockets is a rag.” “There is always something to be cleaned.” Then there were the rest of the rules.
Rule #2: “Who’s watching the register?” Rule #3: “There’s no such thing as absentee ownership.” In the Russ family, these rules were constantly repeated. Until credit cards arrived, Russ & Daughters was a cash business. And lots of cash in the register meant lots of temptation and lots of tsuris. Someone from the family always had to be within eyesight of the register in case an employee “made a mistake” while ringing up a sale or making change.
Although most purchases are now paid for with a credit or debit card, a Russ still must be in the store at all times, to make sure that “the merchandise is always rotated” (Rule #4) and, when necessary, to tell an employee to “drop what you’re doing and take care of the customer” (Rule #5). “The customer is always right” is Rule #6, but it isn’t chiseled in stone like the previous five rules. After all, in our store who knows more than we do about herring, smoked fish, and caviar?
The Handshake
Back in the old days, most people on the Lower East Side did business with a simple handshake. No one knows when that tradition ended and the my-lawyer-will-call-your-lawyer business model began. Sometimes I wonder if Grandpa Russ had something to do with that.
I have known the Yavarkovsky family since I was born. They owned and ran a paper-goods business out of a few small warehouses on Ludlow Street, one block from Russ & Daughters. Above one of the warehouses was a dentist’s office in the front (for one of the Yavarkovsky sons) and an apartment in the back. That was where we lived when I was born, in September 1945.
Rose Yavarkovsky, a longtime fixture on the Lower East Side, the daughter of pushcart peddlers, married the Yavarkovsky son who took over the family business. When he died, Rose ran the business herself, and later ran it with one of her sons. It’s hard to tell how old Rose is. She admits to being in her nineties. But Aunt Hattie says, “She’s a few years older than me,” and Aunt Hattie is now ninety-nine.
Until recently, Rose stood outside her warehouses on Ludlow Street each day, rain or shine (wearing a mink coat in the winter), clipboard in hand, checking in merchandise that arrived in large trailer trucks from the paper-goods manufacturers and checking out merchandise being picked up by small jobbers and retailers in their cars and vans.
Conversations with Rose were civil and usually about business; we weren’t friends. If we didn’t pay within two weeks for paper goods that we’d purchased for the store, I’d get a reminder call from her. On a recent shopping trip to Russ & Daughters, Rose seemed chattier than usual and anxious to tell me a story about Grandpa Russ, whom she referred to as Yoi’el (she used the Eastern European pronunciation), and her father-in-law, Joseph (for him she used the American pronunciation).
My mom and me in front of the
warehouse building on Ludlow Street
As Rose recounted the story, Grandpa Russ bought paper bags and wax paper for wrapping smoked fish from Joseph Yavarkovsky for many years. One time, Yoi’el needed to borrow some money, so he went to Joseph, who loaned him the money at no interest, to be repaid on a certain day. They shook hands. According to Rose, when the due date came, Yoi’el didn’t repay the loan and didn’t say anything about repaying it. So Joseph went to Yoi’el to ask for his money back. Yoi’el was offended that anyone should ask him, Yoi’el Russ, to repay a loan, knowing that his word was as good as gold and that he would, of course, repay it as soon as he had the money. Shtolts was the word that Rose used to describe Yoi’el. Literally translated from the Yiddish, it means “proud,” but it was clear that she meant “arrogant.”
Yoi’el ultimately repaid the loan, but he never forgot the slight to his honor. A few years later, Joseph wanted to buy a small one-story warehouse at 183 Ludlow Street that Yoi’el owned and used to store wooden barrels filled with herring. The property was near the two warehouses Joseph already owned, and he wanted a third. Even though Yoi’el needed the money, he would never, “not over my dead body,” sell it to the offensive Joseph Yavarkovsky. “Big shot,” he sneered. “Who does he think he is?”
According to Rose, her father-in-law then engaged the services of an Italian lawyer, whom he sent to Yoi’el with a shopping bag full of cash and a claim that his client was an Italian grocer. Yoi’el sold the property, not knowing that the ultimate purchaser was Joseph Yavarkovsky. We don’t know what happened when Grandpa Russ found out, but I’m glad I wasn’t there when he did.
Rose told me she had just sold the three tiny warehouses on Ludlow Street to a developer who planned to build a sixteen-story boutique hotel on the site. Her price was $13.5 million, she said with a wry smile. As an afterthought, she mentioned that for years the paper goods stored in the warehouse that her father-in-law bought from my grandfather reeked of herring, which caused many complaints from their customers. So the Russes had the last laugh. And the Yavarkovskys have $13.5 million. Aunt Hattie, who had never heard about any of this, ascribes what she considers Rose’s tall tale to jealousy. “After all,” she said, “Rose was the daughter of peddlers who sold onions and potatoes, and their pushcart stood for years in the street right in front of Russ & Daughters.”
Changing the Business Model
When I arrived on the scene in 1978 to take over the business, it was clear that some things had to change. Grandpa Russ’s preferred business model—etzel-petzel (seat-of-the-pants)—had been in place since he first opened the store. As far as I know, this approach to running a retail outlet is not taught in business schools. I would be the one to turn Russ & Daughters into a real business.
Before the Yom Kippur holiday rush during my first year in the store, I discovered that there had never been a real attempt to implement a method to maintain crowd control and customer flow. Grandpa Russ, my parents, and my uncles and aunts felt that having customers take a number from a machine and wait their turn was insulting, impersonal, and too “uptown.” So a system was developed, and it was followed whether there was a holiday or not, whether there were two or two hundred customers in the store. It was known as the “CU” system in shorthand; in longhand it was “See-You,” and it went like this: Each working member of the family had his or her own following of customers. When regular customers came into the store, family members would recognize them and know who usually took care of them (even if, more often than not, their names would not be remembered). And so the word would go out to the appropriate Russ, “Herbie, your CU is here!” This was understood to be the Russ & Daughters way of doing business.
Those who did not have a CU would wait for the call “Who’s next?” Inevitably, the same response came simultaneously from several elderly ladies, who answered with a phrase no longer used today but very common in the argot of the Lower East Side of the past: “My next!”
That Yom Kippur eve I watched in disbelief as three women simultaneously shouted “My next!” in response to the counterman’s call. The rest of the waiting customers spontaneously divided themselves into thre
e groups, each one allying with and arguing on behalf of the contestant who they believed was entitled to be waited on next. It was not a pretty scene. Besides being an affront to my sense of professionalism, this situation was also commercially unworkable. It meant all business came to a dead stop, which meant time and money were being wasted.
I went to the office in back of the store, found a package of index cards, and numbered each card from 1 through 100. I took numbers 1, 2, and 3 and randomly gave one to each of the “My Nexts.” (They didn’t complain; they saw the determined look in my eyes.) I put the remaining cards in a plastic pickle container and insisted that each of the other customers take a number with some sense of honor for the order in which they came into the store.
The customers comprehended the gravity of the situation and knew they had to be flexible, or they would leave without their smoked fish for the break-fast. They quickly organized themselves and took numbers.
It was another matter for the customers who came in later and who hadn’t witnessed the mayhem or been part of its resolution. They required explanations and some convincing, especially the “celebrities” who had never taken a number anywhere for any reason and the “old-time regulars” who couldn’t understand what had happened, since my grandparents, parents, aunts, and uncles had never asked them to do anything so bizarre as to wait their turn or take a number.
But from then on, customers who came into Russ & Daughters took a number from a little red machine (the pickle container gave things a nice homey touch, but it wasn’t a very efficient number dispenser) and waited their turn. The “CU” system was no longer an option: there were no longer three Russ daughters and three Russ sons-in-law to divvy up the customers. I was the only Russ behind the counter for a long time.
Russ & Daughters Page 19
