As of yesterday, the deli has officially been open for business for one whole month! It has been super surreal to have the whole project go from a hypothetical party topic to real thing that forces us to get out of bed every morning (EVERY MORNING). It has also been terrifying, exhausting, and so so exciting. Now time to force ourselves to sit down and review the good, the bad, and hold ourselves accountable for our future goals.
THINGS THAT WENT WRONG
Day One:
Our first transaction was a crushing disaster. No exaggeration here — complete and utter failure. One of the moments when you’re scrambling to remain calm while silently cursing yourself for ever thinking this was a good idea. Our side dishes were in half finished pieces strewn across the counter, we blew a fuse, and our register refused to cooperate. All in all it took a good 28 minutes for us to make three sandwiches. Luckily, it was family and we make a mean grilled cheese. And everything got a lot easier from there.
Signage:
Initially we planned on writing our menus out in white paint marker on heavy black illustration board. We lucked out finding an overhead projector at Construction Junction, and put together our oh-so-clever set up to trace out the menus. The projector didn’t work. Nor did our paint markers. So we started our first day with an impossible to read menu. We decided to shift gears and replace the illustration board with felt letterboards that matched the vintage vibes in the rest of our buildout and ordered some that evening. Which never shipped. Nor did the second order. So 4 weeks in, we’re still receiving bits and pieces to complete our final menu.
The blindness of strangers:
We make all of our corned beef in house, brining the beef for 7-10 days and then cooking it for 10 hours in a combi oven. Up to this point, we’ve been putting the beef in the oven Friday night and pulling it early Saturday morning so we have a fresh batch for the weekend. This past weekend, we got to the kitchen a little after 8am to find the oven turned off, 14 lbs of cold corned beef tormenting us. We panicked, questioned everyone in sight (it’s a shared kitchen), and tried to quickly sort through manuals online hoping there was a history feature on the oven. Eventually, we realized there was no hope to cling to. We tossed the beef and crossed Reubens off the menu for the week. On a positive note, now we know true agony and that you should always always always leave a note.
THINGS THAT WENT RIGHT
With everything that went wrong, this whole month has been an insane learning experience. In the months leading up to the opening, we had so many questions and only a foggy idea of what the expect. We’re still getting our act together, but its been a lot easier to map out our goals now that we have the space and the tools in front of us. Now we can focus on the smaller details with a clearer picture of what customers are responding to and also how our space is taking shape. Every day we’re able to make little improvements to the booth, tweak our recipes, and stock our shelves with new gifts we love.
We’ve also been really fortunate to get great feedback from customers.We’ve spent the last few years using friends and family as guinea pigs for our recipes, so it’s been doubly satisfying to hear a kind word from people that aren’t obligated to tell us everything we do is great. The public market environment isn’t always the most inviting for people eat and chat, so we’ve been grateful for those customer’s that opt to take a seat at our counter and share their stories with us.
THINGS FOR THE FUTURE
While we’ve been figuring out scheduling and invoices and recipes and not cutting our fingers off, sometimes it’s hard to see the forest for the trees and remind ourselves why we started doing this to begin with. This week we’ve been forcing ourselves to get more creative and dig into to new projects. We have a 10lbs of tomatoes on order and are trying our hand at making mozzarella (!!!) to introduce a caprese sandwich special to the menu.
ALSO!!! We got a new little cat buddy and he is the greatest in the entire world!
We’ve been crazy busy! Last weekend we celebrated our opening with a preview menu for friends and family at the Pittsburgh Public Market. Check out some images below!
Since moving into the house nearly three years ago, we’ve been slowly chipping away at home renovations, collecting enough commercial kitchen equipment to make our first floor look like a second hand restaurant supply store, and cooking, cooking, cooking. Making progress on a budget can be frustrating, and sometimes it seems as if there isn’t a light at the end of tunnel.
This past Valentine’s Day, we decided to make a big leap and explore a shared kitchen space in the Pittsburgh Public Market in the Strip District. With the help of the team there, we’ve rolled through a tumultuous six months of workshops, business classes, certifications, logo designs, and convincing people we have any idea what we’re doing. We’re still a bit nervous that we’re forgetting things, but we’re set to have a real live shop up and running by mid July!
So we’ve collected our notes and we’re finally doing some side by side tests on corned beef, trying to finalize our recipes for opening. The stack above is corned beef and pastrami cooked sous vide and conventionally in brisket and short ribs. We’re going with a 80/20 mix of the two, going to use the corned beef at the Strip District and pastrami later on.
That picture looks pretty good. For a preview of our menu, visit stevesdelipgh.com. See you soon!
I’m not the kind of person that can be rational in a grocery store, especially on an empty stomach. I lose any sense of logic at the sight of novel fruits. On a recent trip to our grocery store I lost control and picked out three of each awkwardly shaped root vegetable, leaving our cashier sweaty and confused trying to remember the codes for four different types of identical sweet potatoes (I also had no idea). Eventually a produce savant emerged and rattled off random numbers with ease until the cashier held up the final root. “That? That’s just a giant carrot.” It weighed out at nearly 2 lbs.
I don’t typically put a whole lot of thought into carrots, but this beast merited special attention. We decided to make it the star of the meal, slow roasting it in a heavy bottomed cast iron pot similar to a technique we’d heard used on cauliflower at Noma. After two hours on medium low heat with minimal oil, the carrot emerged intensely carroty with a deep rich flavor and a hearty crust.
We sliced the carrot into half inch slices and served it on top of cold sesame soba noodles with mixed vegetables and Kyle Hildebrant’s Nước Chấm. Spicy and flavorful, this sauce adds a lush accent to the roasted vegetables. I will strongly second Kyle’s suggestion that if you’re one to shy away from fish sauce to give this recipe a try before writing it off.
I have a difficult time trusting anyone that hates beets. Sweet and earthy with a color to rival any man made cuisines, beets tend to be a staple in our crisper drawer. I had stumbled across some images of a “beet pesto pizza” a little while back, and never one to turn down an opportunity to make pizza decided to explore the idea further.
This particular recipe took some liberties in using the word “pesto”, the list of ingredients leaving out any mention of basil and topping the pie with an ample amount of kale. A little wiser from my last run in with food-that-looks-too-good-to-taste-good we decided to overhaul their process from the beginning.
We roasted a large beet, half a red onion, and five cloves of garlic lightly tossed in olive oil for one hour. I tend to peel vegetables as little as I have to, and giving the beet a good scrub and cutting it into one inch cubes before roasting seemed to do the trick (it will also save you from staining your fingers too terribly). Once roasted, toss the beet, onions, and garlic into a food processor with a handful of fresh basil, two tablespoons of pine nuts, and a two tablespoons of olive oil. Pulse until the ingredients are well incorporated and form a paste and add salt and pepper to taste.
We opted to skip the layer of kale in the original recipe (the texture just didn’t seem right), and after spreading the beet mixture on the dough sprinkled liberally with lemon zest (about one whole lemons worth). I wouldn’t recommend skipping this step, the zest helped to add more depth to the overall flavor and cut the sweetness of the beet quite a bit. Next, add artichoke hearts, goat cheese, and parmesean and bake. Before serving I added a handful of baby arugula and a drizzle of balsamic glaze.
While this isn’t your traditional pesto pizza, the beets lend a new and distinct take on the classic pie. The deep flavor of roasted beets and garlic cut with the acidity of the lemon is a refreshing change from marinara while the basil brings you back to familiar territory. The crust seemed vitally important, so I would encourage taking the extra time to make yours from scratch.
