In 1872 Husband and Wife team Isaac Gellis and Sarah Gellis opened up one of Lower East Side’s first kosher butcher shops at 37 Essex street. Being Jewish immigrants themselves it was important to establish a kosher market that was accessible to everyone in the neighborhood. Two year later Isaac and Sarah made the move from simple butchery to sausage making, meat brining, curing and smoking. With the demand of the immigrant culture at the time and the charitable neighborhood involvement of the Gellis’ the butcher shop turned into a family run delicatessen. Staffed by Isaac and Sarah’s seven children Isaac Gellis Kosher Provisions (IGKP) became one of New York's largest purveyors of salamis, cold cuts, smoked fish and sausages, though most popular were their all beef hot dogs. Suppling other delis such as Second Avenue Deli, Katz’s, Carnegie Deli with their pastramis, salamis and hot dogs Isaac Gellis became a staple in New York cuisine. As the Gellis family grew so did IGKP. The next generation expanded into more meat packing plants with more locations where the frankfurters and salamis were made. Bulk sausages that could be bought in super markets as far away as Florida were being produced. Refrigerated trucks delivering to all major delicatessens in New York, Brooklyn, Queens and Westchester were all a part of Isaac Gellis Kosher Provisions. Still the original flagship Deli at 37 Essex Street was where it was at. Lines of customers surrounded the block because they could smell the delicious smoke house as far away as Houston street. 

The Story of Isaac and Sarah is a very interesting one because it shows how a simple skill set such as charcuterie and butchery mixed with vision and culture can be turned into a a success story. Isaac and Sarah, wed on the ship that brought them from Russia, they became a matriarch and a patriarch of the Lower East Side in the late 1800s and were founders of the Eldridge Street Synagogue. They were always participating in charity, which in turn helped to perpetuate the delicatessen. When the prices of meat rose, IGKP kept the price affordable to the community. When there were no other kosher butchers in the neighborhood IGKP made meat accessible. This fundamental business idea of making your products affordable and accessible to the community and purveying wholesale to larger firms is what led to their success of over 100 years until the company was sold and my Grandparents retired.

I grew up listening to stories of my Father and Uncles talk about working the counter at IGKP when they were in high school. They talked about how strong and wonderful the smells were and how busy it used to get around lunch time. Dad used to tell me stories of how he would bring extra pastrami sandwiches to school and sell them to the highest bidder. I remember Chef Sebald, the butchery instructor at the Culinary Institute of America, doing a double take on the name printed on my chef coat, telling me he was one of the butchers in my Grandfather’s charcuterie shop. It was at that moment in 2005, at the CIA that I realized I might have something to make a career out of. 

I sometimes hear native New Yorkers talking about how good IGKP hot dogs were and that their pastramis and salamis were the best in the city, that you could smell them from blocks away! Someone should bring them back. This changed dreams into destiny.

Now 38 years later I am looking to embrace the same fundamental business practices of accessibility and purveyor-ship that my great great great great Grandparents practiced and open the new Isaac Gellis Provisions.