At 10:00am on a wintry, Thursday morning, it is unusually quiet at Zingerman’s Deli. A welcoming scent of bread and cheese fills the front room. Workers are hustling about stocking shelves, answering phones and cleaning the store, preparing for the lunchtime rush. With the addition of a new building, the evolving atmosphere of the famous Ann Arbor deli is starting to fulfill the business’ goals of an expansion.
THE ZINGERMAN’S DIFFERENCE
Employees and customers alike come to Zingerman’s for the atmosphere and culture. The workers find their jobs enjoyable and the business is a pleasant place to work. Maddie, an employee at Zingerman’s for two and a half years, explains, “It’s just a very dynamic and diverse group of people, which I feel like if you have that then it makes for ultimately a much more entertaining work experience, and it’s just more fun.” She is happy to be in a job position where she isn’t doing the same thing every day. “Usually I’m supervising but today I’m doing everything to do with the front of the house,” said Maddie, explaining how she stocks shelves and helps other employees with the tasks at hand. “It’s nice to mix it up,” said Maddie.
Maddie truly values the connection she has with her managers and the people above her in the business. She finds these connections very helpful and rewarding. She explains, “I’ve never had as great a relationship with my managers as I do here. It never really feels like I can’t go to them with problems or questions; it’s very much a balanced relationship… Even Ari and Paul who started the business are popping around sometimes to talk to people and just hang out.” She believes it’s these types of relationships that make her job at Zingerman’s stand out from other jobs that she has had in the past.
Customers can appreciate the overall quality that Zingerman’s presents, as well. JoAnne and her husband, two customers who live near Toledo, Ohio, come to Ann Arbor only four or five times a year and always make it to Zingerman’s on their visits. “We’ve been coming for over thirty years since they first opened and we like the service and we like the quality of the food,” she explained while eating breakfast in a building that is part of the new extension at Zingerman’s. JoAnne sees past the expense of the food because the service and food are of great quality and worth the price.
PRICING
So why is Zingerman’s priced the way that it is? The deli is known as being a pricier place to shop but the costs for each sandwich are built up from quality and other behind-the-scenes expenses. Mike White, a supervisor at the deli for two years now explains, “We try and bring in really high quality products, which means they’re going to cost more in general.” He said that Zingerman’s brings in only the finest ingredients for their sandwiches, which contributes to the price, but also, some of the other things that contribute to the Zingerman’s culture and atmosphere are connected to pricing items too. “We’re covering the transportation of products to us…we also have to cover all the free samples you get when you come in,” White explains. He also mentions that everyone who works at Zingerman’s for more than 30 hours a week gets full benefits, even college students, which is in part covered by the cost of products too.
White also points out that sometimes products just seem expensive by reputation at the deli and it turns out that if you look around, there are some relatively cheap things. “You can come here and get a half a baguette and some cheese and some butter and some slices of meat for five dollars.” Proving that there are ways to get around without emptying your wallet at the store. JoAnne also comments, “I think some people think it’s pricey but I think it’s worth it because they use quality ingredients.”
FOOD: ALL THE LITTLE THINGS
Zingerman’s prides itself in having great food. With the outcome of the ingredients being quality products, the individual aspects of the sandwiches are from only the best. As far as meats go, Zingerman’s has found high-end ingredients locally as well as from around the country. Their well-known corned beef comes from Sy Ginsberg’s United Meat and Deli in Detroit. The founder of the company, Sy Ginsberg, originally made the corned beef on site at the deli before branching out to create his own business. Today he still supplies corned beef, all beef hot dogs, kosher salami and roasted turkey for Zingerman’s.
Other meats such as smoked salmon make their way to Zingerman’s from down the road at Tracklements on Kingsley Street, however, more products arrive from Utah, Iowa and even the San Francisco area. The Ann Arbor deli gets a grasp on the highest quality ingredients possible, which means that cheeses often travel from Europe to reach customer’s plates. Noticeably, the efforts pay off.
Maddie says her favorite sandwich on the menu is the #73. “It’s the turkey with avocado spread, mustard and tomato and Russian dressing. It’s delicious.” In the store she recommends the Pecan Raisin bread, admitting that she could eat it by the loaf.
White, however, explains that employees go through phases of what they get on their sandwiches, “There’s trends that happen behind the scenes here. Like there’ll be a trend of getting roasted red pepper sauce on everything, or a trend of getting fried egg on every sandwich.” Workers can change things up and build their own masterpiece to eat on their own. White explains further, “Recently I’ve been getting things on our focaccia bread, grilled…I also had a phase of getting things with sort of this sauce that we have, it’s a mixture of two mustards and capers and stuff…I’d put that on a brisket or turkey.”
Numbers show that customers have their favorites too. White recommends the #2 Zingerman’s Reuben to anybody new to the deli. “It’s just the classic one, we sell ten times more of that sandwich than any of the other ones… it’s just awesome.” The bread in the #2 is from the Zingerman’s Bakehouse and the sauerkraut is made locally in the Brinery. “We make the Russian dressing, we have a nice imported Swiss cheese that melts well but is still really rich and we cook the corned beef in house too. We’ve controlled as much of that sandwich as possible and that’s the one that we pride ourselves on the most,” White explains. Maddie suggests #13, a sandwich just like the Reuben but with coleslaw instead of sauerkraut.
THE EXPANSION
Zingerman’s has made big changes in their business through the process of expanding the size of their deli. The reasoning behind the big expansion, which has been up and open to customers for six months now since construction, is Zingerman’s wanting and needing more room for more customers at a time and efficiency. White explains the desire further: “Just like any other company we do want to make money over time and we saw that the long lines outside turned some people away…We just wanted to create more capacity for serving more customers.” The business noticed that they needed more space to operate in everyday, as well as a way to be more effective and efficient. They saw an expansion as a solution.
The addition has changed the working experience for employees at Zingerman’s. Maddie thinks highly of the change, saying, “It’s been a good learning experience in just rolling with the punches and learning how to deal with pretty epic change.” She’s noticed that the addition has definitely helped with seating for customers but the atmosphere has, in fact, changed a little. As she explains, the new place has a “Different sort of vibe than the little shack we had before.” Some customers though, appreciated the old ways. Feedback that Maddie has gotten from regular customers includes that they liked the coziness of the deli before and that the crowd of people added character to the place. JoAnne admits her feelings about the expansion, “[We love it…but we wondered did they buy more property?” It turns out that Zingerman’s had the same amount of space before and after the expansion. White clarifies, “We still had the same amount of space but it was sort of spread out and not a unified experience.”
Zingerman’s has always had a traditional deli style about it and there was some question about the expansion leading the sandwich shop to more of a style like the Zingerman’s Roadhouse. The Roadhouse has the same quality ingredients and service as the deli but in a sit down dining experience. With the expansion bringing more seating to the deli it seems to take away from the traditional, smaller deli atmosphere. White confirms, however, the expansion won’t change the serving style. “As long as we’re still taking orders with someone standing up next to you as you come in, instead of taken at your table, it’s really going to make sure that he service dictates the style of the interaction.”
It’s hard to see where the expansion will end up taking the Zingerman’s deli business, especially since the new space has only been connected to the old area for two months. White suspects that when larger events like graduation, the Art Fair and even football season roll around, they’ll be able to compare numbers from years before construction, to now, and gauge their improvement. Hopefully the local deli will continue providing great service and great food to Ann Arbor through the growth of its expansion.
