Chester, NY — Here’s how a no-good Italian kid from the East Bronx got off his derriere one day, worked at delis all over New York for 24 years, and ended up opening the first, genuine New York-style kosher deli downtown.
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“Kosher-style,” corrects Jeff Sisti. “Same food, no rabbi in the store.”
Sisti is the owner of Goldberg’s Famous Bagels and Kosher Style Deli, which opened two weeks ago at the Quickway Plaza off Route 17M. It’s a milestone for the former hell-raiser and current businessman and father, whose life could have taken a very different turn, he says.
It’s also a milestone for Chester, which is beginning to sprout some culinary flare.
When Sisti, 40, moved up to Orange County 20 years ago, the area was “completely country,” he says. That’s changed as more New York City residents have come up, bringing with them a taste for their old city neighborhoods.
“It’s allowed a store like mine to open up,” Sisti says. “There’s now enough people who understand what I offer and who will support me.”
There’s no question Sisti’s deli is just like you’d find in a kosher deli in Brooklyn or the Bronx. He serves freshly steamed corned beef, pastrami and brisket; real water bagels; and 18 different kinds of spreads, to go or for sit-down in a 50-seat cafe.
Asked how he got here, Sisti replies: “It was either this or jail.”
He was just 17, a high school dropout, with poor grades and a penchant for getting into trouble. He lived in a Bronx neighborhood known for shootouts, drug busts and people in front of crack dens waiting to get high, he remembers.
“I’ve done everything I can,” his mother told him, giving him an ultimatum. “So you’re gonna go to work and pay me rent, or live out on the street.”
Sisti chose to stay — a good thing, since “all my friends are either dead or in jail,” he says.
Bagel beginnings in Manhattan
His first job was at Bagels on 2nd, a shop on 77th Street and 2nd Avenue in Manhattan. He worked for a bunch of “old-school” guys with Italian and Jewish last names.
They straightened Sisti up real good, real fast, he says.
“It was, ‘You’re supposed to be here for work, you’re here to work,'” Sisti remembers. “There was no such thing as late, or sick, or anything,”
Two years later, he moved to Greenwood Lake to live with his father while commuting to delis in Westchester, Rockland and New Jersey. He worked for nearly 50 places before meeting Marc Goldberg, a deli owner in Montvale, N.J., who gave him and a guy named Monte Brewster a shot at running their own stores.
Fourteen years later, it’s the Italian guy who’s left with the Jewish business, running it out of a Westchester shop and thinking about opening a second store. That’s when Sisti called up Brewster, working as a car salesman at the time, to see if he wanted in.
“You know I’m 62?” Brewster tells him, but then, “Why not? Let’s give it a shot.”
For Brewster, the Chester store is a chance to go back to what he knows and maybe to leave something behind.
“And if my son doesn’t start doing better in school,” Sisti adds, “he’s going to start doing this full-time.”
this is a good sample to check for a HECHSHER even it says KOSHER!
Lets be happy we finally have a kosher deli in the area even if its not chasideshe hashgacha….considering that its not such a frumme area, this is probably the best we are going to get so mazal vahatslacha to the owner.
The TH-Record article clearly states that this is not a kosher restaurant, merely “kosher style.” All that means is that the food is similar to what you’d find in a Jewish deli.
It’s sad since some non observant jews will make it their business to buy there because it says kosher. I was just at epcot and since they were so busy today they ran out of the kosher meals, they just had a few burgers. This person comes to order and asks for a kosher frank, when told that there are no more he asked if the regular frank buns contain milk. He was told that they do, so he ordered a regular frank with no bun. He wasn’t gonna eat meat and dairy together, but unfortunately since the kosher bun wasn’t available he just took the available non kosher one. Such unfortunate people don’t necessarily know to look for a Hechsher, but if it says kosher – with a name like Goldbergs it’s gotta be OK.
Their is also a so called kosher place in les Vegas and I was lucky to ask who the rabbi is and they people their didn’t even know what I’m talking about, until the chef came and explained it’s only a kosher style like soup with matzoh bolls, in these days we all need to be very careful even it’s your next door neighbor
to #2 you might as well eat at any MCdonold
reply to #2 its unbelievable what kind of people read VIN .it seems that you have no problem eating Traif as long as the name is kosher
Well, I guess Rabbi Weiss from the Kosher Enforcement has a complaint to file, Kosher is a trademark that you can only apply with real kosher food, imagine you open a restaurant and call McDonald style food, you will get sued the next day by McDonald.
No sir. The problem is precisely that it DOES Imply (deliberately, misleadingly) Kosher. Mis-informed Jews do Not see any distinction from having the word “STYLE”
Are there any kosher – kosher style delis around? In brooklyn Essex on Coney was the last such place, but it has closed.
Kosher Style = Pregnant Style. No such thing.
Either you are or your not; either it is or its not.
There is a Frozen Yogurt store in LA called ‘Toppings’ that claims to be “kosher”. Upon my calling the establishment’s owner directly he conceded to me that only the actual ingredients were kosher but he has no supervision. He then went on to say that he actually has two non-kosher ingredients at the store but he labeled them as such. Moral: BE CAREFUL. Just because it says ‘Kosher’ or has Hebrew letters means NOTHING!
Orthodoxy has many stripes. Even Duncan Donuts on Rockaway Tpke is kosher my Lubavitcher friends would not eat there because of cholov yisrael. It does not make the place treif. On St Germain in Montreal there is myriad of establishements with hebrew lettering which you don’t have to patronize if you do not wish to. The same goes for Katz’s Deli on Houston St.. Just don’t eat there. There are many people who like traditional foods but have no need for ritual
All of you, yes all of you have ignored the bishil akum aspect of this issue. Without the hechsher YOU CAN’T EAT THERE not only because of questionable practices but because of absolute issue!
Do the people who confuse kosher style with kosher think home fries are made in the chef’s home?
The fact is that kosher style means exactly that – in the same style as a kosher deli, but NOT kosher. It’s just a style of cuisine. Generally it means no pork, ham, or bacon, and little or no blatant bassar bechalav. There’s no deception, no attempt to mislead, anyone who thinks it’s kosher is just illiterate or an idiot, and deserves to be fooled. There are hundreds of kosher-style delis around, this is not some new invention. There are plenty of people who don’t keep kosher but like the kind of food they get at kosher delis, so they buy the same kind of food in treif.
There are also many Jews who keep sort-of kosher like this, and many more who don’t keep kosher at all but keep pesach. I can name at least a dozen friends who on Pesach will get the meat without the bun, or even will not eat at a burger place at all because everything is chometzdik, but will instead go out to have steak or lobster. And recently someone I know, who is now in her 80s (tzu lange yorn), told me that on her 12th birthday her father took her out for bacon and eggs, and then ordered a black coffee because he was fleishig! (Nu, go tell him ein issur chal al issur!) Another friend of mine once got on a plane on Yom Kippur, but didn’t eat until it was dark.
Anon #28 , there are different levels of kashrus, but there’s a big difference between that and outright treif. One person may rely on leniencies and another may be stricter; one may eat Hebrew National, and another may eat at 2nd Ave Deli, but they’re all eating kosher, or at least trying to. Katz’s, though, is TREIF. It is not kosher, it has never been kosher, it doesn’t claim to be kosher, and anyone who eats there is not keeping kosher, at all, by any standard. It’s not even all that kosher-style, because it does put cheese in meat sandwiches.
This is the best store I’ve ever eaten at