Wondering when West Michigan will have great deli & boiled bagels. Southfield MI
I am soaking up the Southfield at Tel-Twelve, the major intersection of Telegraph and Twelve Mile. Three almost in a row delights me, the Bagel Factory, the Star Deli and a Starbucks Coffee. Okay, Starbucks might not be indigenous to Southfield, but the stores have some success thinking locally and still give a duffer who bought a cup of coffee a nice seat and a wireless connection, the last gasp of the loitering culture of the Twentieth Century. That loitering culture killed Borders Books and Music and drags like a millstone on Barnes & Noble. Here for a while one can read from a Kindle Fire or a Nook or a paperback and maybe sneak in a snooze in an armchair. Back as a younger divorced loser, a midweek visit to my Royal Oak Starbucks was all I required in terms of a dating service. I am certainly not looking for a dating service today. I have scored a bakers dozen of authentically boiled bagels and a corned beef sandwich from the Star Deli. I would snack on that deli goodness here at this table if I weren't on my best Sunday behavior.
The staff at the Star Deli has run to the younger, and that's fine to see the institution pass on its knowledge to another generation. Back in the day, the late Eighties, I hung with a law student named Marty and a Premed student named Stu and a B-school student named Doug, all members of the tribe. As they called it. And they all hinted to glance at the arms of Star Deli employees to glimpse the tattoos, a mark from the concentration camps of World War II. I spotted one tattoo on the arm of an elderly employer once, not a tattoo one would choose for oneself. I cannot remember it well enough to describe it to you, except its blue thin fading line.
It is like a graduate school here today, with young men and women working their Barbri & Med board books hard. A few social tables balance this out. I picked up a few download cards for the Black Keys, coming to Van Andel of Grand Rapids in March. I let my daughter know that I saw a download card for Adele two years ago, proving that Starbucks has a viewpoint on culture to come. I picked up one Black Keys download for me and one for her.
I wish I understood. Grand Rapids as a region has a Jewish Theater, a synagogue in Muskegon and at least one in Grand Rapids. Yet, I had to talk to a consultant in food and beverage to find the location of a deli. One of the keys to the urbanity of Detroit, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago is the presence of Jewish owned business, the deli only one. As Grand Rapids and West Michigan develop, I hope we see this community grow and prosper.
