When you think of a sandwich, most of the time you don’t attach a special name to it or try to cram more than half a dozen ingredients into it. It’s just a sandwich. This isn’t the case at Tasty Deli, a Washington Heights eatery with sandwiches given crazy names such as the Charlene, Sloppy Sal or The Experiment.
Just outside the exit for the A/C/1 trains on 169th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue, Tasty Deli stands in the same spot since it was founded in 1957. Walk inside, and you’ll most likely see owner Santiago “Santi” Francisco happily taking and serving orders behind the counter amongst his small group of trusted employees. It wasn’t always positive times for the business, as it nearly became victim to the economic downturn on numerous occasions. Somehow, it managed to stay afloat.
Santiago started working at Tasty Deli in 1986, and he moved his way up the ranks from the kitchen to the front and then to becoming a manager. When the owner decided to leave, he turned it over to Santiago in 2004. Since then, he has been running the place following a tight routine.
After waking up at 5 am in his New Jersey house, he takes his daughter to school and goes to the market for the Deli before heading across the George Washington Bridge to work. He usually gets in around 10, works until closing time at 7:30, to get home around 8 or 9 and do it all again the following day. It is a labor-intensive enterprise.
Tasty Deli is a family business, since the former owner was the son of the original founder from 1957, and Santiago currently has his brother working for him. The dynamic between the brothers is not any different from Santiago’s relationship with the rest of his crew. “My brother has his job; the rest have their job,” said Santiago. “Just because he’s my brother, he cannot send the guys to work because… you can’t have two roosters where there’s a lot of chickens.”
The “Celebrity” sandwiches the store is known for were not there until Santiago started to take notice of the repeated orders his customers would make, oftentimes “in communication with the students from Columbia (University Presbyterian Hospital).” “Some of them used to come in and say, ‘let me get a turkey sandwich, let me get a little avocado, a little basil, a little Jalisco’ so what I did was take all those ingredients and put it into one sandwich.” The names attached to the sandwiches are oftentimes unrelated, and are merely there to draw attention. The menu also grew to appeal to different palates, such as embracing vegetarian options or wraps and salads. Santiago operates his business with a sense of confidence and loyalty, a sentiment developed from the tumultuous “roller coaster ride” he’s had throughout his decade as store owner.
After the economy took a downturn and as the years passed he struggled but “six or seven months ago everything changed and it’s coming along, it’s afloat.” He was losing business, he said “people didn’t want to spend the money that they used to, since the economy hit, everyone was struggling.” He had to borrow nearly a $100,000 dollars from credit card companies and even lost his second business, Tasty 2, in Newark. “Everybody kicked me to the curb, my father, my cousin, I continued, and I’m here.” Santiago said even his own mother told him “You’re crazy; your own employees are going to be richer than you.” He decided that he couldn’t give up. His response to failure: “you might as well hang yourself, if you’re working and making $1,000, $2,000 a day and you go to work for $400 a day… Once you give up, you’re dead.” Only recently – a week ago – was Santiago finally able to clear his business of debt, and now it feels like a huge weight is off his shoulders.
Santiago was able to reach his goal by integrating new aspects into his business, such as delivering orders and embracing technology. Once he became owner, he started doing deliveries, especially to the hospital right nearby. As time went on he expanded the reach of his delivery service, which boosted his business. He embraced online ordering services such as “GrubHub, Seamless, Eat24, Delivery.com,” and said that it was “what brought everything back to a point that it’s amazing.”
Santiago has big plans in store for the future, as he is planning to expand Tasty Deli up to Inwood, around 216th Street to get the business from the people working at the Presbyterian Hospital Allen Pavilion, along with the MTA bus depot and various businesses. He is also planning on remodeling the back wall of the deli with stainless steel and rearranging the counters to make space for more tables. Santiago’s theory on remodeling is, “You spend a little something, get that money back, and invest it in another thing.” After the renovation, what will he do: “Create more sandwiches.”
