Kosher Food Branches Out

By Mary Wojcik

Roasted chickens line the front window of East Side Glatt on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Inside, four-packs of matzo balls sit next to pints and quarts of chicken soup; sweet and savory kugel line the entire bottom shelf of a display cooler; and a cornucopia of salads are offered, as are small and large cuts of meat, individually wrapped for family dinners.

For 22 years, owner Baruch Weiss has seen the neighborhood slowly change from his corner spot on Grand Street. The past two to three years have brought the most drastic ethnic change, but due to customer preferences, Weiss has intentionally kept the same homemade Hungarian-influenced offerings in his Glatt Kosher butcher shop.

While he estimates that about 50 to 55 percent of his customer base follow kosher religious dietary laws, 35 percent of his customers are non-religious, and the rest aren’t Jewish.

“Used to be better days and worse days; and more business, less business; now we’re in a situation that there’s less and less business,” said Weiss, who is four years into a seven-year lease, and explains that he doesn’t “know what (the rent) is going to be in three years.”

Gentrification has either decreased, or in some cases even erased ethnic neighborhoods all over Manhattan, and the Lower East Side isn’t exempt. Even with a steady stream of neighborhood regulars, each one of whom he knows by name, Weiss realizes that to survive he will have to appeal to a wider audience. He’s going to export his business to his loyal customers, and new customers, by starting a delivery service catered toward people of all ages and nationalities.

Almost 15 years ago, skyrocketing apartment prices and rents on the Lower East Side began to make it difficult for large Orthodox families with multiple children to stay within the neighborhood. In 2011, 47 percent of the Jewish population owned their own homes on Lower Manhattan East, the area covering Murray Hill, Gramercy Park, and the Lower East Side, while 53 percent rented, according to UJA-Federation of New York’s Jewish Community Study of New York 2011 Geography Profile.

Since 2002, Jewish households have decreased 26 percent, to 28,000 from 37,700, in those neighborhoods. Of those households, 58 percent of residents identify denominationally as 35 percent reform, 18 percent Conservative and 5 percent Orthodox.

“A lot of young families, Jewish orthodox families, have moved out and bought housing in scenic Long Island or other parts of Jersey because the same money that they would have to buy a breakthrough and do all renovations is like getting a house,” explained Sheri Tropper, a Jewish resident who has lived in the neighborhood for 35 years.  A breakthrough would require the purchase of two apartments, side by side, where an owner could demolish an adjoining wall to create a larger apartment.

In 1995, the Seward Park Coop shareholders voted to “reconstruct” the Seward Park Coop Buildings, once used as union housing, comprised of four 20-story structures located along Grand Street and East Broadway, into a “fully-equity cooperative.” By 2000, all of the Seward Park Coop apartments could be offered on the market without price caps.

Shareholders “became very wealthy overnight,” said Jacob Goldman, owner of LoHo Reality on Grand Street, for property values skyrocketed on the open market.

Since then, Goldman has seen apartment sale prices in the neighborhood more than double.

“A studio can go from like $300,000 to $400,000. One-bedrooms you can do for like $399,000 to about – actually with a big terrace it can be $750,000,” said Goldman.  “Two bedrooms sell from $550,000 to a million.”

It’s not just families that are being priced out. Small business owners around the city are feeling the financial pinch, and are either leaving their neighborhoods or closing their doors.

At the end of March in Little Italy, Umberto’s Clam House on Mulberry Street saw its rent double to $34,000 a month after the building was sold for $17.5 million, according to the “New York Post.” In Chelsea, Suenos, a Mexican Restaurant on West 17^th Street, closed its doors on March 23rd after 11 years. In a letter to customers on its website, chef Sue Torres and the Suenos family wrote, “We could go on for hours about the plight of small businesses in these economic times, but we are sure you have heard enough of that in the news.”

Kervin Vales, a building and sales specialist on the Lower East Side, has seen commercial rents rise from an average of $85 per foot in 2004 to approximately $125 per foot in 2014. In addition to rent, he explained that a tenant would then spend another $200,000 to $300,000 to renovate the space – an investment that might never be recouped, but a perk for a future tenant.

“Let’s say he’s only in business for two or three years. What would happen is let’s say his business not doing good, and he can’t pay the rent,” said Vales.  “What would happen is he would have to go.  A new tenant would come in, let’s say at $125 a foot. Now the new tenant is getting a good deal.”

Real estate taxes, utilities and heat also contribute to rising costs – costs passed along to each consumer in the form of higher prices.

Noah’s Ark Deli, a full-service kosher restaurant at 399 Grand Street, closed its doors this past September after serving the community for 10 years. The owner, Noam Sokolow has not responded to repeated phone calls or emails.

The new for-sale asking price for that space, which is owned by the Seward Park Co-op, was $795,00. The space rented for $5,550 per month, according to The Lo-Down, a community web site, in September of 2013. Jonathan West, real estate manager for the vacant storefront, wouldn’t comment on why Noah’s Ark Deli closed or how much the Seward Park Co-op was asking for rent.

Despite an online petition urging the co-op board to rent out the space to another kosher food establishment, the co-op board decided this past March to allow a non-kosher diner to move in.

The kosher food businesses that fill a niche, like East Side Glatt, have an advantage over other kosher establishments in the area, especially when it comes to catering.

“He has kitchen facilities,” said Rabbi Zvi David Romm, of Bialystoker Synagogue, about Weiss, which allows him to cut out the middleman, “whereas the one or two individuals who service caterers for events are basically getting the food somewhere else and just presenting it.”

With Noah’s Ark Deli closed, Weiss now has a larger piece of the neighborhood’s kosher market share. Still, he competes with the kosher grocery store at 504 Grand Street, which underwent an expansion a few years back; Fine Fare Food, a supermarket a few blocks away that offers over 1,000 kosher products; and families commuting to Brooklyn to stock up on food in bulk. But he’s not deterred.

“We’re going to concentrate more now on the take-out,” said Weiss. “I want to concentrate on the Wall Street area and Lower Manhattan.”

Weiss’s idea of starting a delivery service came from an unexpected source  — the diner next door to him, Zafis Luncheonette, which sells take-out and fills delivery orders for Reuben sandwiches, Philly cheese steaks, hamburgers and other food items through Seamless.com, Grubhub, Urbanspoon, and Delivery.com.

Co-owner Mike Kekatos explains that customers coming in off the street consist of 80 percent of his business. The other 20 percent tend to splurge a little more online and spend an average of $15 per order with his online options.

It’s “just easier,” he said. “You don’t have to talk to anybody on the phone and your order’s written out so there’s no mistakes.”

As of April 1, Kekatos expanded his delivery option until 9 p.m. every Wednesday through Saturday night.

Hoping to have the same online and delivery success, Weiss will expand his everyday menu with more offerings such as fresh sandwiches and hamburgers. Weiss plans to advertise with Seamless.com and Delivery.com.

But Vales believes Weiss will need to do even more to survive.

“He has to make sure that he has contacts, like mailing, advertising, to attract that group that he’s looking for,” explained Vales.

Weiss’s current staff of two people will double to four, and he’s already testing the waters with his customer base, by word of mouth.

Sheri Tropper, who keeps kosher, said she’d be interested in a delivery service from East Side Glatt. And her office downtown, which orders delivery every Wednesday, would “probably be interested too if it’s a good product and the price is right.”

Tags: kosher, Lower East Side, seamless.com