Reality Check

Posted on April 8, 2009 by Zane Caplansky

I got an email this morning from Frank at BlogTo.com informing me that he’d posted Caplansky’s profile on his site.  Frank had been in for a review and then returned for a second and even sent questions for me to write written responses.  Intense.  So I clicked on the link and started to read the post.  Made me happy and hungry. Then I kept reading the comments… holy shit!  We’ve pissed off (and thrilled) a whole lotta people.  I thought Chowhound was ridiculous (and it is – 7 pages of threads discussing every aspect of what we do) but I don’t remember getting that many sandwiches sent back.

It does happen.  If its not hot enough, not fatty enough or too fatty we will replace any sandwich.  If you hated it and didn’t say anything so you could go home and write that it sucked and people shouldn’t go, what can I do? Now, there was a month where the meat was inconsistent. What happened was we started using a very large brisket and the cure didn’t penetrate the thickest part of the brisket despite the fact that it had pickled for three weeks.  As a consequence the meat was a little discoloured and dry.  Once I figured out what the problem was there were still three weeks worth of meat in process. 

I’m proud to stand behind the food we serve.  I taste everything daily and ask my people to do the same.  If we don’t meet your expectations let us take care of it.  If we can’t meet your expectations, let’s part as friends.  Or as my father once said: don’t go away angry, just go away. I kid.  Seriously, I ate a piece of knish at Andrew Tile’s birthday party on Monday and thought it was the best thing that had happened to my mouth since Rachel moved away.  When my cousins Lawrence and Lola Caplansky visited the other evening and Lola made me eat half of her sandwich, I loved it despite the fact she ordered Lean.  Lawrence is old school and we share a birthday.  Such a character. His father was my Zaidy’s older brother.  

Mark Cutrara and partner Karin Culliton owners of meat palace Cowbell stopped by for lunch on Monday. They came over afterwards to let me know how much they enjoyed it while I was sitting with friend and butcher Nick Gasparro – son of Vince and pillar of Bloor/Ossington.  What a pleasure it is to have a place where people can come and eat with me although I heard I missed Moses Znaimer for the second time last night.  Avie Bennett (McClelland and Stewart) was in for lunch with 3 generations of Coopers yesterday.  These are people who know deli and they’ve been coming almost since Day 1.  If the food wasn’t right, they’d let me know and you should too.

About Zane Caplansky

40 yr. old Toronto boy trying too eek out a living owning a deli. Been open 18 months and still loving it - mostly.
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  • Big T

    I also ate at your joint, 4 different times, dragging 4 different parties. I’m no name brand food dude, but from an anonymous sangwich eater to a soon-to-be notorious sangwich slinger, all of us loved every single morsel.

    And yes, Chowhound is ridiculous. I always thought the masturbating happened on this side of the computer monitor. Such is life. Sort of.

    Anyway, keep up the stellar work, eff the haters, and expect an angry call from my nutritionist.

  • http://www.goatriders.org Kurt

    You made a newbie mistake, Caplansky. Never, ever, ever read the comments if they’re about you. If it’s an article NOT about you, read away and laugh at the idiocy.

    It’s tougher when you have a blog like I do which welcomes debate. I actually wind up engaging most naysayers that visit my blog which is probably very entertaining for our other readers but is often very annoying to me. But whenever I’ve been written up in ESPN or the Chicago Tribune, I’ve never stuck around to read the comments. It’s too masochistic.

  • http://www.caplanskysdeli.com Zane Caplansky

    duly noted – seriously thanks for the tip

  • Nereis

    Glad you found the issue and are going to fix it.

    We had our first dry fatty fresser a little while back and have not gone back since. We wolfed down the sandwich anyway and told the server.

    It certainly wasn’t anything inedible and there can be off days at any place. The mustard also had a slight bitter note to it, and lacked a bit of that alcoholic punch we usually get.

    Just a thought on the fresser…
    While your regular sandwich has just about the perfect rye/mustard/meat ratio, when it comes to the fresser:
    1)there’s usually not enough mustard to support/counter the meat flavor, so we solve that asking for mustard on both sides of the rye upon ordering/tweaking from the jar when needed.
    2)the regular slice rye sometimes has trouble holding the meat, especially when the meat wasn’t the melt-on-the-bite heaven we had on our previous visits and double the regular amount.

    Me thinks a slightly thicker cut of the rye and default mustard on both sides can greatly benefit the first time fresser buyers. :D

    Great work and we plan on visiting back shortly

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