How Sy Ginsberg Helped Create Our Signature Sandwich
Ever since Zingerman’s Delicatessen first opened its doors in March 1982, our iconic Reuben has remained our most beloved sandwich. And in all that time, the fragrant, flavorful corned beef that makes it so exceptional has come from one singular source: Detroit deli-meat maestro Sy Ginsberg. It’s a partnership born in brisket heaven.
But how exactly did this legendary collaboration come into being? We recently had the chance to sit down with the OGs who were there at the very beginning—Zingerman’s co-founders Paul Saginaw and Ari Weinzweig—as well as longtime Deli Managing Partner Rick Strutz, and they gave us the skinny on this savory saga.
So here’s a little side of history you can enjoy along with your next Zingerman’s Reuben.
Enter the Deli Man
Sy Ginsberg has the deli business in his bones. He got his start working at a Detroit delicatessen as a teenager in the ’60s and later ran two of his own successful delis in the area. But he gradually grew dissatisfied with the generic commercial meat he was getting—a far cry from the authentic fare he’d been raised on—and so he decided to take action. Leaving the restaurant game behind, Sy began to cure meat using old-school methods, and he launched United Meat and Deli in 1982.
Meanwhile, over in Ann Arbor, Ari and Paul, who’d met as co-workers at the now-gone eatery Maude’s, were preparing to open the Deli. They, too, were chasing a dream of providing the community with the traditional American Jewish comfort food of their childhoods.
“We just wanted to put out a really great sandwich,” Paul says. “One that was so big that it took two hands to pick it up, and when you finally bit into it, the Russian dressing would roll down your arm.”
Naturally, it was only a matter of time before Sy came into the picture.
“We were with Sy before we even started,” Paul remembers. “My friend Bennett Terebelo owned a deli in Hope Park [in Detroit], and when we told him we were going to open one, he sent us to Sy. Sy taught us how to cook corned beef, how to double-bake rye bread and slice it. He talked to us about portioning and pricing. We didn’t know what we were doing in terms of running a delicatessen, and we got a lot of information from Sy.”
Sy offered much more than information, however; he also didn’t hesitate to get his hands dirty.
“He would time his delivery to our lunch rush, and then he would get here and help us work the sandwich line,” Ari says. “He was super generous and kind. It was a good match.”
There’s even a story floating around that Sy himself made the very first sandwich ever given to a customer at the Deli—but we can neither confirm nor deny that monumental claim.
“It should have a nice distribution of fat and lean,” Ari explains with the casual confidence of a true connoisseur. “The fat is where the flavor is, and it needs to be properly cooked. Then you don’t have to cut it so thin, like a lot of places do, which makes the moisture leave quickly. When it’s cooked well, it’s very tender, so you can cut it thicker.”
And no top-notch Reuben would be complete, of course, without fantastic rye bread. This is why, when the bread from our original supplier wasn’t cutting it anymore, Zingerman’s Bakehouse was ushered into existence in 1992. If you can’t find the loaf you seek, you bake it yourself.
“In our world, as Sy taught us and as we still do today, we double-bake the rye,” Ari adds. “Whole loaves go back in the oven for 20 minutes or so, at about 350 degrees, so the crust gets super crispy. Then you cut it while it’s hot.”
In our joint quest for culinary glory, the Deli worked with Sy over the years to refine the brine and better the brisket, resulting in our very own recipe for Zingerman’s Corned Beef (hence the capital letters!). Though Sy’s other products can be found in restaurants stretching “from Anchorage to Miami,” as his website notes—a veritable deli empire—his team makes our corned beef exclusively for us, and you can’t get it anywhere else. (Except at Paul’s other deli, Saginaw’s, at the Circa Resort & Casino in Las Vegas.)
Further meaty innovations followed in the ensuing years, as Deli partner Rick Strutz relates.
“After we left our old pastrami provider, we worked through that recipe with Sy and Scott [Mendelsohn, Sy’s business partner],” Rick says. “It was difficult, but we ended up with a better product by far.”
Then came the next cold cut mountain to climb: turkey.
“I forget where we were getting our turkey from, but I knew there was better turkey out there,” Rick recalls. “So I asked Sy and Scott if they’d start doing turkey for us, and they said absolutely not. Then they called back about a month later and said, ‘Well, maybe we can do it when we’re not open on a Saturday or Sunday.’ So they started processing our turkey, and it was completely different. We use the tagline ‘turkey that actually tastes like turkey,’ because it does.”
It’s About More Than Meat
In the end, what makes the Deli’s partnership with Sy Ginsberg so special isn’t just the out-of-this-world corned beef or the classic deli techniques we’re both deeply devoted to. Beyond that, it’s our shared commitment to values, quality, and an extraordinary guest experience.
“Like us, Sy wanted to be unique,” Paul reflects. “He wanted to have a premium product. And we pushed each other on that. It was a back-and-forth, always with respect and always with fun. It’s been a joyous relationship.”
Ari concurs: “Our goal is always to make things better, even when nobody’s complaining. To Sy’s great credit, he was willing to humor our drive to keep taking what was and making it better.” No wonder that within the industry, Sy’s name represents, as Ari puts it, “flavorful food, high quality, and high integrity.”
“He’s a good man,” Rick says, summing up the common sentiment. “He’s honest. He busts his butt every day. He thinks he’s funnier than he is, but he’s pretty funny.” Rick offers a sly smile, then adds earnestly, “He’s really taught us a lot.”
Teaching, learning, inspiring each other to be better—that’s the stuff beautiful collaborations are made of, and it epitomizes all the delicious, dedicated work Zingerman’s Deli and Sy Ginsberg have done together over the course of more than four decades.
