Celeb Shot: Daniel Chessare Pt. 1
SLAH sits down with the owner of Saratoga’s Broadway Deli, a.k.a. the Deli Lama.
Full disclosure: We didn’t come up with the nickname “the Deli Lama,” quite possibly the most perfect words to describe Daniel Chessare, the outspoken owner of Saratoga’s Broadway Deli. The credit is due to Two Buttons Deep, which coined the moniker when it reposted one of Daniel’s infamous Instagram text posts, where he weighs in on the state of the world (such as the labor shortage), the state of New York State (such as the newest mask mandate), the state of Saratoga (such as SantaCON, which he dubbed “Santa-cron”), or the state of his right-off-Broadway sidewalk (such as people puking on it). Several such text posts have gone viral, earning Daniel the reputation around town as “kind of crazy” and “not that nice” and “the guy who posts good stuff on Instagram,” per three Saratogians who shall remain nameless. “It’s really not a fake personality for me,” says Daniel, who’ll be the first one to own up to his sorta prickly, tell-it-like-it-is personality. “I just got tired of the fakeness of the restaurant industry, tired of the fakeness of customer service.”
So, why exactly are we bringing you an interview with the Grinch-like owner of Saratoga’s singular Jewish (-style) deli on Christmas Day? Well, partly because I met with him for drinks on Wednesday evening and then had to do the entirety of my Christmas shopping in a day and a half and only just got around to writing this. And partly because, come the holiday season, Daniel’s heart grows at least three sizes—the last two years he’s offered rotisserie chickens, completely free of charge for any customers who need one, no questions asked. Last year, the gesture gained the deli national attention when CBS did a segment on the program, and resulted in nearly 100 postcards and donations being sent to the deli from all across the country.
In reality though, if you look past his not-afraid-to-offend posts, Daniel isn’t actually a Grinch: He’s someone who cares deeply about the less fortunate, service industry workers, the local restaurant community, and Saratoga as a whole, year round. Oh, and good, authentic food—he cares about that a lot. And while you certainly get a taste for who he is in the deli’s Instagram posts, you can only fit so many words onto a two-inch-by-two-inch square. Here, we fill in the blanks with an abbreviated version of my hour-plus-long conversation with him at the Merc. (For the truest deli lama experience, pour yourself a couple of Old Fashioneds, put on an unamused expression, and enjoy.)
—Natalie
How’d you wind up in Saratoga?
My family moved to Saratoga in ’97, ’98—something like that—from New Jersey. I graduated in ’99 from Saratoga Springs High School.
And what made you stay?
My very first job ever was a kitchen job washing dishes at Little India and then bussing tables. Then I had a job in high school in this building when this used to be Professor Moriarty’s back in the ’90s. And I worked at Scallions for like nine years…sous chef at The Wine Bar for two years, and head chef at the Merry Monk for a couple years. So instead of leaving I just kind of built up my career here. I had family here, a career up here and by the time I was really old enough to go out and start traveling places I already had a reputation here. It’s a good place to stick around.
Your parents are both Italian, and your stepmom is Jewish. Why’d you choose to open a Jewish deli?
Because there were none in Saratoga. The problem is everyone keeps opening Italian places in Saratoga, and now we have 15 places where you can get chicken parmesan. I counted: It’s 15 including the pizza places. You can get them as cheap as $13.99 at, like, Pizza 7 or as expensive as $28 at Pennell’s. It’s still f***ing chicken parm. And so if you’re going to open a business in Saratoga it’s got to be something that isn’t being done yet. You look at the number of copy-cat restaurants that we always get that go out of business, so…Jewish deli. We have a decent amount of Jews up here and yet there was no place to get just a f***in’ pastrami on rye.
How would you describe your deli persona?
I basically just act like myself. So kind of obnoxious, kind of nice. If I don’t like you, I’ll tell you. If you make a bad decision on the menu, I’ll let you know. I’ve talked many customers out of making bad decisions when they’re doing custom sandwiches. They’re like, “I’ll have roasted red peppers, roast beef, cucumbers, cranberry mayo with honey mustard.” And I’m like, “That’s a terrible sandwich, please don’t get that.” What’s going to happen is they’re going to go home and eat a terrible sandwich and then they’re going to go online and tell people how they got a terrible sandwich without explaining that they have s*** taste in food. Or, I’ll actively try to talk people out of getting a salad. Our salads are fine, but it’s a f***ing bed of lettuce with s*** on top. It’s like going to a steakhouse and getting fish. Salad is for people who lack character. It’s like, that’s your personality? You’re a salad person? Do you also enjoy your vodka sodas and skinny margaritas?
When did the Instagram/Facebook social commentary start?
Our first big thing was a bunch of butthurt hippies tried to cancel us. At the time I had mainly women working for me, and I made this post that was like, “Hey guys, I’m out of town today but the women are in charge and don’t worry about it, they know what to do. And they also know the rules: no Phish, no Grateful Dead, no Dave Matthews Band, no songs over seven minutes unless it’s by Meatloaf of Metallica.” And there was one butthurt Phish hippie that was like, “Maybe you shouldn’t sh** on people’s musical taste.” And I was like, “Well, maybe you should have better musical taste.” So then she shared this exchange to these Phish forums, but they knew they couldn’t rally behind that, so they tried to turn it into a #MeToo thing by saying, “Oh, it’s good to know that the business owner assures people that everything will be fine when women are in charge.” And then someone else was like, “Yeah, good to know women can make sandwiches.” And I was like, “Well, I literally hired them to make sandwiches—that’s their job. I’m not going to hire a woman to make a sandwich and then have her not make the sandwich. So…yes?” And so then that ended up devolving into this massive mess. It reached, like, a million people between Facebook and Instagram.
Then what?
From that we kind of catapulted with our free lunch program when the shutdown happened. We gave out free lunches to kids who were out of school until the schools had their programs up and running to deliver these lunches to kids. That turned into the free chicken program that we did last year and this year. That got us our popularity, and then I was like, “Let’s start talking about things in the restaurant industry, like Chowderfest.” They always release these images of Chowderfest that are happy, smiling people. So I took that image from the Saratoga website and changed all the pictures in it to drunk, passed-out people in snowbanks and was like, “Here you go, Saratoga—I fixed your Chowderfest image for you.” And then we took a dump on SantaCON because that’s a terrible thing…And then how everyone in this town wants to act like we’d be nothing without track season. I’m like, “f*** that.” Track season is six weeks of the year and we’re the ones who keep this town running the rest of the year—it’s the locals, it’s the local businesses. Yeah we get a bump in August—it’s great—but if the track didn’t exist, Saratoga would still exist. And if your business needs track season to survive, you shouldn’t be in business.
Why did you decide to do the free chicken program in the first place?
COVID was the best thing that ever happened to our business. We had a really great year and we knew a lot of people didn’t. And we were sitting on plenty of money—the government threw money at all the restaurants in town.
Why do you think you did so well during the pandemic?
We started our business with online ordering, with DoorDash, with social media. We were already driving traffic through all of those things and were very agile and adaptable. We weren’t one of these big, lumbering, full-service restaurants that had no takeout or delivery and a staff of 30, and then all of a sudden had no dining room, too many employees and no way to get food to customers. So we were one of a few restaurants in Saratoga that was open until everyone else reopened for takeout like three months later.
What was the response from the chicken program?
It got shared locally, then got picked up by CBS national news. That was huge for us. We did over 200 chickens last year and we’re just under 200 this year. What it is is it’s a lot of people who fall between the cracks. They’re making too much money to get unemployment or food stamps or other government benefits but they’re not making enough money to support their families. We got almost 100 postcards in the mail—some just saying thank you—and donations. People still come in and talk about it.
Can I have another old fashioned, please? Thank you.
Read Part 2 of our chat with the Deli Lama here.