Zingerman’s Deli: From 1000 Square Feet to an Entire Campus

The story of how we expanded… and then expanded again… and again!

What started with one small building has become a campus of buildings tucked into a multi-use neighborhood with a unique character all its own. We are committed to operating on this corner in a historic area where businesses and residences have coexisted as neighbors for decades. (This neighborhood actually appears on the earliest plat maps of the city, then spelled Annarbour!) We also pride ourselves on being caring, committed, responsible corporate citizens in our community. As a result, we’ve slowly and thoughtfully grown over the years in ways that contribute to the unique character of our neighborhood, help fuel our local economy with new jobs, allow us to be good stewards of the environment, and serve our community full-flavored and traditional foods.

The Original Deli Building

Zingerman’s Deli opened on March 15, 1982, at the intersection of Detroit and Kingsley streets. The two-story, orange brick main building, with its mere thousand square feet of selling space, has been in the food business its whole life: it was built as a grocery in 1902 by Rocco Desderide, with a residence above the store. (Today, those rooms are used as offices; when Ari and Paul first opened the Deli they rented them out to help cover the mortgage!) There was seating for two dozen people and the menu had about that many sandwich offerings, plus traditional Jewish foods like chopped liver and a small selection of specialty foods like cheeses, smoked fish, cured meats, and breads and pastries from local bakeries. This building has been in the food business for its entire life! Desderide sold the grocery store to the Diroff family in 1921, who operated a similar type of store until 1980, when it was briefly operated as a delicatessen by attorney Arthur Carpenter, founder of Kerrytown. (Read more about the Deli’s history, check out the original menu, and see some early photos in this blog post.)

Wedge Expansion

In 1986, we added a 700-square-foot addition to the original building. (We also acquired the 420 Building—more on that in a minute—at this time: it was actually a prerequisite for the wedge expansion!) This pie-piece-shaped wedge housed the sandwich line and provided additional room for dry goods. Its unique shape met Historic District Commission requirements that the addition not be visible when standing kitty corner to the Deli.

420 Building

This is the building in the middle of our campus, that’s now a part of the Deli Addition (hang tight, we’re almost to that part!). Like the original Zingerman’s Deli building, this is a historic building. It’s a small but significant space: It was Rocco Disderide’s former residence, he actually moved it from its original location on the corner to build the brick building in its place. It’s also the place where Food Gatherers started in 1988. (Did you know? Now an independent nonprofit, Food Gatherers is the first food rescue program founded by a for-profit business!) Once referred to as the Annex, we now call it the 420 Building or simply 420… due to the house’s former address of 420 Detroit Street.

Next Door Café

That first expansion turned out not to provide enough space for what we wanted to do (are you picking up on a theme here?), so in 1991, we renovated and expanded the 19th-century wood-frame house next door and added the patio. That building is Zingerman’s Next Door Café or simply, Next Door. This added an additional 80 or so seats, more convenient guest bathrooms), space where we could make espresso, brew pots of specialty coffees and teas, and offer a much-expanded selection of sweets. It was refreshed in recent years with a massive mural that covers every single customer-facing area!

Events on Fourth

Zingerman’s Events on Fourth (ZE4) was an off-site event space, exclusively used by Zingerman’s Catering & Events space. This space was also used as the kitchen production space during part of the addition buildout (more on that in a minute!). It’s no longer a Deli property, but it’s still in the Zingerman’s family! If you’ve dined at Miss Kim, you’ve been in what was once Events on Fourth.

Deli Addition

We started actively talking about the potential for expanding the Deli back in 2007. As Managing Partner Grace Singleton explains, “At first it was just learning what had to happen and how to approach it—Paul Saginaw was a BIG help. We had some great partners, and with their assistance, we developed our needs assessments and our site plans.” In 2008, we were able to purchase the lot at 322 Kingsley; it allowed us to completely rethink our design and keep our patio! Prior to that acquisition, we’d been planning on building over the patio, which we weren’t thrilled about, but at the time, it was the only space we had to grow into. In 2010, the City of Ann Arbor approved our new site plan (that included the Historic District Commission’s approval of the exterior design)—granting us permission to move the 420 Building (as long as we put it back exactly where it was) and remove the structure on the 322 Kingsley property.

In early 2011, the first shovel went into the ground, construction of the new building was completed in 2012, and the connection (what we call the Atrium) between the addition and the original building was completed in 2013. (The work was done in different phases, so construction took longer, but that meant we could stay open and serve guests through it all!). We worked with Quinn Evans Architects and Phoenix Contractors, two excellent partners for tackling a challenging project. This is the Deli you know and love today, with expanded seating, a large open kitchen, an outdoor dining deck, more restrooms, and more registers!

The Atrium is a spot for ordering sandwiches; it’s also where you’ll find the grab-and-go case, accessible elevator to access the second-floor seating, and registers for checking out. On the ground floor of the addition, the kitchen takes up most of the level; the remainder is mainly our front-of-house operations center. The latter is a space we call the South Porch because its big garage doors open up and connect the space to the patio. Currently, it’s where most of the phone calls to the main Deli number are answered and all orders are timed and processed to the sandwich line—with a complex set of parameters used to ensure you get your sandwiches at the time we quoted you when you ordered. Eventually, we have plans to return this area back to seating, at which point guests will once again be able to settle in on the room-wrapping bench made from the pine tree that once grew where the new building stands (it was a landmark tree in the front yard of the 322 Kingsley property)!

This level also connects with the 420 Building, which is now the spot to pick up orders and quench your thirst with a Northwoods Soda. The addition involved lifting this historic home off its foundation—we put a new basement under it and gutted it (found a bunch of memorabilia in the walls in the process: baby shoes, newspapers, glass bottles). In order to stabilize and insulate the building, we removed the interior sheathing and then added insulation and new interior walls. We saved the boards from the original interior though, you’ll find them lining the stairway to the second floor. After fortifying and fixing it all up, we put the building right back where it was—the outside of 420 is inside the new Deli space! We get a kick out of the fact that what was formerly a shaky, old house barely suitable for storage was adapted to be the hub of the Zingerman’s Deli experience. It’s pretty awesome to have guests in this space again.

Upstairs, you’ll find a BIG dining space with long family-style tables. Like the bench downstairs, these wood-topped tables were custom-made for us by the Jensen Brothers. (Fun fact: Internally, we call this room the “USDA”—UpStairs Deli Addition!) On the second floor, you’ll also find restrooms and outdoor seating. Many staffers consider the latter to be one of the Deli’s best-kept “secrets”—the “Upper Deck” is a lovely outdoor space with beautiful views!

The expansion also allowed for some helpful behind-the-scenes additions. They might not be visible to guests, but they’re important updates to how the Deli functions! We were able to improve facilities for staff, give everyone a little more breathing room to work, and make changes that enable us to serve more people! These changes included: adding another break area, updating the equipment, creating more kitchen production spaces, and adding air-conditioning to all of the kitchens. We also created a larger receiving dock with an elevator for moving all the products through the Deli, a larger catering prep area, more walk-in coolers, and expanded space for product storage—the latter of which allowed us to stop paying for warehouse space.

Psst: Want a behind-the-scenes look at the Deli? A few times a year we host a Deli All-Stars Dinner with a limited number of spaces for a private tour of Zingerman’s Deli. Keep your eyes on our Event Calendar and join us for the next one.

Bigger and Better

We’ve continued to expand our footprint over the years for a number of reasons. Primarily to have more room and less crowdedness for everyone—guests and staff! The addition resulted in us having more seating, more restrooms, and more space to display food, with a roomier shopping experience to boot. It provided more comfortable navigation throughout the building and full ADA compliance, indoors and out. The additional space means we’re now better able to accommodate large groups of diners, scheduled meetings, events, theme dinners, and tastings. And, we were able to add more parking—bike parking, that is! We kept our covered parking on the 420 porch, added bike racks on the Kingsley side of the building, and added covered bike racks for staff at the back of the building.

The addition gave us the chance to green up our act, reduce our carbon footprint, and become more efficient in our energy usage. The environmental impact of the build-out was considered in every decision—sourcing, construction, daily use, and into perpetuity. Those efforts resulted in the U.S. Green Building Council awarding us Gold Level LEED Certification for our multi-year expansion project. If you’re not already familiar with it, LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and is defined by the USGBC as “a green building certification program that recognizes best-in-class building strategies and practices.” The Ann Arbor DDA (Downtown Development Authority) gave us a grant to cover some of the costs associated with the LEED design—it was a huge help! We incorporated green-friendly construction methods and implemented more energy-efficient mechanical and operational systems. (Also, moving all of our kitchen operations to the new addition helped stop the wear and tear on our original historic building.)

Greyline

The ZE4 space was successful, but it had its limitations—we could host a maximum of 60 guests for events. We realized the potential a larger space could offer and Kerrytown Market & Shops really preferred that the space be one that was open to the public for lunch and dinner. So, the timing couldn’t have been better to get a call from First Martin saying that there was a new space that hadn’t been designed yet on the first floor of a hotel project (Ann Arbor’s first new downtown hotel in over two decades!) at the corner of Ashley and Huron. That hotel is the Marriott Residence Inn, located at the site of the former Greyhound Bus Depot.

The Greyline (Yes, the name is a nod to the former tenant!) opened in 2016 and occupies the first floor of the building. On the exterior, the venue preserves the original historic limestone facade and neon sign and we added several features of the bus depot to the interior, too. In the vestibule, there’s a photo of the depot in use, the men’s and women’s restroom signs are from the original depot, and, in keeping with the style of the bus depot, the interior design style is industrial Art Deco. The space is nearly triple the size of ZE4 and can be configured for different needs and types of events. The addition of this space allowed Catering event planners to move from the Deli office space to a workspace at Greyline and provided storage space for Catering equipment.

That’s a Wrap!

Today, decades after we first opened our doors, the heart of Zingerman’s Delicatessen remains the same! We’re still a familiar bustling place to meet your friends, bring your family, enjoy great, full-flavored traditional foods, and get the trademark Zingerman’s customer service experience. We know there will always be some nostalgia for the way things used to be in the original Deli space back in 1982, but we couldn’t be more pleased with our current collection of unique buildings and connected spaces and hope you are too: they’re a blend of new and old that still feel familiar yet allow us to provide better service, better food, and an even better overall experience. Our expansion from a single building to a corner campus allows us to dig our roots deeper into this place we love.