Saul’s Deli marks 30 years as owners look to future
Longtime owners seek continuity, ponder next phase for popular eatery
By Marta Yamamoto
Correspondent
BERKELEY — Saul’s Deli has been a North Berkeley institution for 30 years, and its owners are quietly considering its next phase.
Finding a successor to carry on the Saul’s tradition is something that Peter Levitt and Karen Adelman, co-owners since 1996, have been thinking about for some time.
“Really, we’ve been looking for someone to take over for a really long time,” Adelman said. “It’s not like we’re out-the-door; it’s more that we’re looking for some continuity for succession. We really weren’t quite ready for all that has happened.”
It seems appropriate to look back to Saul’s Deli — what it is and its importance to the community — before looking forward to what it might become.
It’s the longest-standing deli of its kind in the East Bay, and customers have come to rely on its signature Eastern European Jewish cuisine and convivial atmosphere.
The large 110-seat dining room functions as the ideal spot for a cup of coffee, a bowl of matzo ball soup or as the site of a birthday party or holiday celebration.
Levitt and Adelman have successfully brought traditional New York Jewish deli culture to an area of gourmet and local sourcing consciousness.
The two began at Saul’s as line cook and waitress, respectively, and on assuming ownership decided that their Jewish deli could begin to reinvent itself, looking toward artisanal ingredients and seasonality in menu offerings. The first thing they did was procure food that didn’t come out of the industrial food system, though they kept this to themselves.
“At first, we didn’t tell people we were doing it because that went against the cavalier cul-
ture that it was not yet appropriate to talk about the ingredients and, if you were too far off from New York City, you were not really a Jewish deli,” Adelman said.
They began to source locally, establishing longterm relationships with local vendors, including Acme Bakery, which developed a New York-style rye just for Saul’s. They make their own celerytonic sodas and organic bagels, and some of their meat products are cured in-house.
The formula worked, and Saul’s has become a multigenerational meeting place, a North Berkeley institution where the menu has something for everyone, from child through senior citizen.
“At this time, we’re the only Jewish deli, and we’re one of the last institutional dining rooms left in town with full-service breakfast, lunch and dinner,” Levitt said.
“It’s a really big dining room that kind of functions like a Times Square; people see each other there and greet each other at the tables. I love that part of it,” Adelman added.
Describing themselves as forward-looking, Levitt, 57, and Adelman, 54, want Saul’s to carry on, and to that end are hoping to find a successor to keep it going — someone younger with restaurant experience and back-of-the-house kitchen experience. They’d like someone who is familiar with Jewish food, has a lot of heart and is good with people.
“The person has to just love people and be passionate about the Jewish deli menu, making it relevant to today’s ingredients and economic forces and to people’s desire for a cleaned-up food supply,” Levitt said.
The ideal outcome would be someone who works their way up while being mentored, but Levitt and Adelman accept that now that the word is out, a buyer could come along who wants to take over right away and retire them out of the way.
“We want to have as much continuity as possible for our staff and for our customers,” Adelman said. “I know that can’t be a rule, but I think the best match is going to be when that happens the most naturally.”
Adelman admits that stepping away from Saul’s would be a big change for her. She’s surprised at what a good match it turned out to be, a chance to be part of the community and to give back — in all, a profound experience.
Levitt describes stepping away as extremely sad, yet a time for selfreflection and discovery, one of those times in life to reinvent yourself.
“It’s a two-way street, the community and ourselves, and it’s a really great thing that we’ve all built,” he said. “There’s some way in which a Jewish deli is not just presented, it’s created between the customers and the people making it, and Saul’s has a really great vibe as well as a lot of love, and that’s a really great thing.”
