Three months ago—it seems an eternity—Seattle Weekly published a preview of an ambitious new restaurant. We predicted great things. It seemed like a sure thing: a serious New York–style deli on the Eastside (where the demographic knows from deli), co-owned by the guy who runs one of the most successful outside–New York delis in the country. What could go wrong?
Well, just about everything. Having blown the bugle for Goldbergs’ Famous Delicatessen so brazenly, we had to tuck it in and announce that we had been egregiously premature, as had the management. A day after their grand opening, Goldbergs’ management announced that promised breakfast and lunch service was suspended until further notice. Dinner service could be called so only as a courtesy. Wait times for a table (we know, we know, our bad) ran upward of an hour, reservation or no reservation. Ordering from the huge and appetizing menu was like trying to order in a foreign language, so uncomprehending was the waitstaff. And a lot of the promised items weren’t to be had anyway. Even more grievous, the deli case stood stocked and luscious looking, but take-out was not to be had for love or money.
Three months have passed and the worst problems of dining at Goldbergs’ have faded but linger, like a severe bruise. Supplies of first-rate deli nosh like smoked whitefish ($8.95 for one, $17.95 for a platter) and chopped liver (a huge fresh portion made daily, $6.95) have stabilized. You can now reliably order take-out. The hot pastrami sandwich ($8.75 half, $10.75 whole) is piled generously high with succulent, tender, mildly spiced meat, too fatty for those who don’t realize that pastrami has to be fatty to be pastrami but just perfect for those who do. The stuffed cabbage (rice and ground-beef filling and a tangy tomatoey sauce $6.95) is just like Aunt Fruma used to make, but it comes without her “Why don’t you get a haircut?” on the side. The potato latkes ($8.75 for three) are more like little oblong cannonballs than pancakes, but very good for their kind.
So things are better; a lot better. But they are still not great, and unlikely to be great any time soon. Goldbergs’ has two problems, one self-created and corrigible, the other built-in and unlikely of solution. First, the menu. New York delis traditionally have huge menus, but the best stick to variations and combinations of a few basics: the smoked seafood platter, the overstuffed sandwich on rye, and comfort foods like knishes and chicken soup. They do not, for the most part, go in for salade niçoise ($8.75–$11.75), barbecue salami ($7.95), Western omelets ($8.50), or Belgian waffles ($5.25). Granted, you don’t have to order from what might be called the Gentile side of the menu, but the kitchen still has to cope with the cognitive dissonance involved. You can’t do everything and do it all well, and everything appears to be what Goldbergs’ wants to do. And I mean everything, including dishes I’ve never encountered outside ads for Miracle Whip, like a salad of “chicken breast, mandarin oranges, rice noodles, toasted almond slices, shredded carrots and sesame seeds” ($7.25–$10.25).
Goldbergs’ could trim and refine its menu if it wanted to, but it can’t solve its other big problem so easily. In a word, staff. There are unquestionably enough deli- knowledgable folks in the Eastside eating-out community to make a place like Goldbergs’ a success. But there do not appear to be enough—any, actually—service personnel who know traditional deli food adequately to take a satisfactory order, let alone answer questions. The elderly shuffling waiter of East Coast deli tradition I don’t expect in Factoria; but a teenager from behind the counter at Burger King won’t do. At least until s/he has been taught the difference between knishes and kreplach.
Goldbergs’ Famous Delicatessen, 3924 Factoria Blvd. S.E. (in Factoria Mall), 425-641-6622, BELLEVUE. 7 a.m.–10 p.m. daily. www.goldbergsdeli.com.
