Celeb Shot: Daniel Chessare Pt. 2
SLAH sits down with the Deli Lama, a.k.a. Saratoga’s Broadway Deli owner Daniel Chessare.
This post is the second in a two-part interview with Deli Lama Daniel Chessare. Check out the first part here.
So now you’ve come to be known around town for your text posts?
We just found that when we started talking about things, a lot of people got a hint of what the restaurant industry was like. Anthony Bourdain really blew it up with Kitchen Confidential, and he’s the one that really brought up the substance abuse and mental health issues and the secrets of the trade. But that was always on a big national level. It’s unique for a restaurant in town to be like, “Hey, tourists f***ing suck, they’re all goddamn animals. Maybe don’t puke in our plants and if you’re going to sleep, go sleep in the park—it’s way nicer than sleeping on the sidewalk in front of the deli.” There’s always been this mentality that since the customer spent money at your place, you’re supposed to bow and scrape to them. It’s like, “No. If you think that buying a $10 sandwich gives you the right to treat me and my staff like fucking garbage, go home and make a goddamn sandwich.”
Have you ever had any backlash?
Yeah, sometimes we’ll get some butthurt people. The ones who are butthurt are always the ones that I’m calling out—the s****y customers. One day I had this sign on the door and it said “Please do not come in if you have the following symptoms: COVID, cold, flu, homophobia, sexism, transphobia or racism.” And this couple opens the door and were like, “We were going to come in, and then we read your sign and now we’re not.” And I’m like, “Well, thank you for listening to the sign.” And they’re like, “That’s not what we’re saying.” And I’m like, “Well clearly you read the sign, you realized you were one of the things on the sign, and decided not to come in, so I would like to thank you for following our sign.” And they just stormed away. They called themselves out on it. Which one of these were you? Did you have COVID or are you a racist piece of s***?
It seems like people from both sides agree with some of your more political posts.
We did a post saying that the onus of responsibility for customers wearing masks shouldn’t be on small businesses. Both sides picked it up. The left was like, “small business owners being picked on by people on the right.” And then the right was like “small business owners being picked on by the government.” It’s interesting that they’ll take the same post and apply their own thing to it. But it drives hundreds of thousands of people to our website so I don’t give a s***.
If you could change one thing about Saratoga what would it be?
How white it is. There’s a reason we have 15 places to get chicken parmesan but not a single real Chinese food restaurant. You’ve got to go to Albany if you want Korean barbecue, you’ve got to go to at least Clifton Park if you want Vietnamese. Forget it if you want anything from Africa. We did a “sandwiches from around the world” menu and did a sandwich from every continent. People loved it. There’s a demand for authentic ethnic cuisine in Saratoga, but the rents are insane and a lot of the authentic experiences won’t happen because people know that for mass appeal they’re going to have to cater to the generally white population of Saratoga. That bums the s*** out of me. Even if you do get something different, it’s by white people. We’re doing all these different things at the deli, but I’m still technically a white person. And the ramen night at Hamlet & Ghost? Fantastic. Best ramen you’re going to get in town. White people. Before we rent out another space in town to some generic Italian restaurant, I would love to see priority given to restaurants we don’t have. Can we get a dim sum place? Can we get a ramen place? How do we not have a ramen place? White people love ramen.
How would you describe the state of Saratoga’s restaurant industry?
One of our bigger posts was the post I made about why there’s a labor shortage in the restaurant industry. Everyone’s blaming the enhanced unemployment and I’m like, “No it’s not the enhanced unemployment. The restaurant industry is f***ing garbage.” It’s an unsustainable industry. The business model of the restaurant industry, for decades, has been exploiting underpaid labor: You’re going to get $11 an hour and you’re going to work 60 hours a week with no benefits, no paid vacations and if you’re sick, you either come to work or you don’t get paid. There’s always been this excess of labor and laborers never had leverage because if white people decided to hold out for better pay, restaurants could always turn to Mexicans and be like, “You guys want to make $8 an hour?” And of course they do. And then they’re being even further criminally exploited, quite illegally. There’s this idea that you are supposed to be criminally underpaid for this job because it’s not a “real job”—it’s not a skilled job that you go to college for. Bulls***. The Culinary institute of America is charging almost $100,000 for a culinary degree. That’s a skilled labor job. If you were to take your average person and stick them in a kitchen, they’d cry three hours in. They don’t want to work 12 hours washing dishes with no pee break.
Is that changing in any way?
The restaurant industry in this town is getting better only because it’s been forced to get better. Cooks are making more than they’ve ever made. Dishwashers are making more than they’ve ever made. What happened was the pandemic hit. This is the only time this entire industry has had leverage against people who employ them. If you want me to come there and make hamburgers, it’s going to cost you $18 an hour. If you want me to work 60 hours a week? Alright, but that’s 20 hours of overtime.
How do you predict the industry will continue to change in the future?
The restaurant industry is slowly realizing they don’t have to be open 13 hours a day. It used to be that you had to cater to the customer. Now, customers have to change their expectations for the restaurant. You’re seeing smaller menus because of supply chain issues. You’re seeing limited hours because of labor issues. And we’ll finally, at some point, reach this equilibrium of customer expectations versus business expectations. At some point we’ll meet in this middle ground where customers won’t expect restaurants to be open seven days a week, 12 hours a day, and they shouldn’t expect a three-page menu. At the same time, business owners shouldn’t expect their staff to work while deathly ill because they can’t afford to miss a shift.
You certainly have a lot of grievances about Saratoga and the restaurant industry. What’s your favorite thing about this city?
It does have a great public and personal support local movement. Saratoga has more restaurants per capita than most major cities, and we only lost two restaurants during the shutdown. That’s insane.