Three houses away from where I grew up in Mays Landing there was a corner store that was three things at once. A liquor store. A deli. And in the early days, a Texaco station. Over the years I watched three different families own it. The name changed. The faces behind the counter changed. The one thing that never changed was what my mother and father sent me there for.

My mother sent me for deli meats. My father sent me for a pack of Salems.

I was a kid. Every owner in that place knew my dad — pretty well respected in town as a school board member and football coach. They knew those cigarettes were for him and not for me. They sold them to me anyway. Three houses away, everybody knew everybody, and that was just how it worked. That would never happen today. It should not happen today. But it tells you something about what a neighborhood deli actually was. It was not just a place that sold food. It was a place that knew you.

By the time I hit middle school I had a sub almost every day after school. Italian. No tomatoes. I know — I love tomatoes now, before you say anything. But that sub, from that counter, in that store that smelled like provolone and fresh bread — that was my first real understanding of what a deli meant. In the 70s, when Wheaton Plastics had three shifts running 24 hours a day, the 8-to-4 crew would line up out the door for their subs at the deli a block down Mill Street. That place was not just a business. It was part of how the town ran.

What the Italian deli meant to New Jersey

The Italian-American deli is one of the great gifts this state received from its immigrant communities. Capicola — gabagool, if you prefer. Prosciutto. Fresh mozz. Roasted peppers in a plastic container. My Aunt Mary from Hammonton actually made the best. The guy behind the counter who called you by your last name and remembered how thick you liked your salami sliced. The smell when you walked in that had no equivalent anywhere else.

New Jersey was built on Italian delis the way it was built on diners. They were the infrastructure of the neighborhood — the place you stopped before Sunday dinner, the place you got the cold cuts for the holiday table, the place your mother trusted because she had been going there since before you were born. Many of those delis were run by families who lived above the store or around the corner. The business and the neighborhood were the same thing.

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What Harold’s taught me about Jewish deli

When I started working at NJ 101.5, my world got bigger. And part of what made it bigger was Harold’s New York Deli in Edison.

Harold Jaffe, who sadly passed away last year — came out of the Carnegie Deli in New York — one of the most famous Jewish delis in American history. What he built in Edison is something you have to see to believe. The sandwiches arrive at the table looking like architectural projects. Pastrami stacked so high it requires a strategy. Corned beef that took someone’s full attention to prepare. A pickle bar that may actually be the world’s largest.

My order there has always been the turkey special. Turkey, coleslaw, Russian dressing. And the matzo ball soup — always the matzo ball soup. If you have never had a proper bowl of matzo ball soup at a Jewish deli, you have a hole in your New Jersey education that needs filling immediately.

The Jewish deli tradition in New Jersey runs deep — Edison, Bergen County, the Shore communities. These are places where the food carries memory the same way the Italian deli does, just different memory. Different heritage, same idea. The counter knows you. The food is made with intention. You leave full in a way that has nothing to do with calories.

What replaced them — and what was lost

I have nothing against Wawa. I genuinely love Wawa. And QuickChek has earned its place. Both do what they do very well and I stop at both regularly.

But they are not delis. They are efficient. They are convenient. They are consistent in the way that all franchise operations are consistent — meaning every one is exactly like every other one, which is precisely the point and precisely the problem.

The corner deli was not consistent. It was specific. It was the Marchetti family’s place or the Tomasello family’s place or the Ferreira family’s place, and it tasted like whoever was behind that counter and whatever they decided to put in the case that week. When Wawa moved in and the independent hardware stores gave way to Home Depot and the corner pharmacy — we had The Court Pharmacy in Mays Landing, my Aunt Franny worked there — became a CVS, we gained convenience and lost character. The neighborhood stopped being a collection of specific people and became a collection of brands.

I am not sure we fully understood what we were trading away until it was gone.

Some of these places still exist. Seek them out. Spend your money there. Get the Italian sub — with tomatoes or without, your call. I recommend the sharp provolone.

The counter still knows how to make it right.

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Gallery Credit: Dennis Malloy