At 100, Attman's Deli Still Tasting Good
ANNA ISAACS
The Daily Record
BALTIMORE (AP) -- Flanked by shelves filled with jars of pickled onions and bottles of spicy mustard, Wade Jaskiewicz is shaving down a hot slab of corned beef at Attman's Delicatessen on a Wednesday afternoon, layering the thin slices on a scale until it tips two pounds. His baseball cap is embroidered with what will be the final product -- a sandwich -- that his T-shirt promises will melt in your mouth.
Jaskiewicz has worked at Attman's since Oct. 9, 1979 -- he takes no pause to recall the date. And like the parade of loyal customers that waits patiently in line for a made-to-order creation, sometimes snagging a piece from Jaskiewicz's proffered gloved hand, he says this proudly about his more than 30-year tenure at the counter: "I never left."
Attman's, which is celebrating its 100th year of serving up traditional Jewish-deli fare to throngs of hungry lunch-goers, is clearly in the tradition of its Manhattan kin. Latkes are served with sour cream and applesauce; the stuffed kishka is homemade; a sign instructs -- nay, insists -- that you order your corned beef on rye with mustard.
But it's also a distinctly Baltimore institution, with racks of Utz snacks and customers who crack open cold bottles of Natty Boh while they wait for their orders. Crab cakes are displayed next to the halvah. The soup selection includes matzo ball and Maryland crab.
During the Christmas Eve lunch rush, Rex Houlihan and a friend have brought their families up from Washington, D.C., for their interfaith culinary tradition, running 10 years strong: Oysters and clams at Lexington Market, followed by corned beef at Attman's, which he's just learned is turning 100 years old.
"Attman's is gonna be here longer than you and me put together," Jaskiewicz tells Houlihan
"I hope so," Houlihan says.
When third-generation owner Marc Attman arrives for his daily visit, he has a different take on the Lombard Street restaurant's longevity.
"You gotta be crazy to be here more than a day," says the 63-year-old man who has worked here since he was 8 years old.
Attman comes in every day, just for an hour or so, making his presence known in small, orderly ways -- straightening chairs and napkin dispensers, bending to pick up a stray scrap of paper from the floor. He says hello to familiar faces, terse but friendly, inquiring about their meal.
For the rest of his professional time, he's a local optometrist, seeing patients at two Optical Fair locations in Ingleside and Eastpoint. It was his first career, a prestigious one, but not the line of work he's known for.
"Most people who know me as a doctor know I'm a corned beef guy," he says -- but not vice versa.
Marc Attman came to be that guy in a tragic way. His brother, Stuart, "was definitely the guy" to take over the family business from their father, Seymour Attman, who inherited it from his father, Harry Attman.
Stuart was just like Seymour, Marc says. There was no question in anyone's mind.
In 1994, Stuart died in a freak rogue-wave accident while vacationing in Jamaica. And so, a couple of years before Seymour Attman died in 2002, there was a family discussion during which Marc Attman and his two sisters suggested that their father sell the place.
But Attman says his daughter steered him into a 180, telling him afterward, "You really upset Zayde," and then, "You're going to have to run it."
So he did.
Harry Attman came to the United States from Russia in 1908, paying his way over as a barber. He went to work in a Rhode Island grocery before coming to Baltimore, where he opened the first incarnation of Attman's in 1915 on what would become known as Corned Beef Row -- a grocery store that would later drop the "grocery" part.
The walls are filled with the history of the deli's surroundings -- street scenes of Lombard in the early 20th century, including a bustling 1000 block in 1968, the same year that it would be engulfed in flames during riots in the aftermath of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination.
"Bustling" no longer describes the street, the home of a once-thriving Jewish community. But inside Attman's itself, little has changed since it moved to its current address in the 1930s. A sandwich is no longer 25 cents, of course. And last year, Attman's wife, Debbie, took the helm of a second location in Potomac. (Over there, the menu is a bit tweaked -- there are kale salads, for instance, at which Attman rolls his eyes.)
But the rest, it seems, is very nearly frozen in time. Attman's sees customers regularly return after decades, saying something along the lines of: "I haven't been here since 1953. It's just as good."
"Everyone's got a story," Attman says.
When reflecting on the staying power of his restaurant, Attman touches on community involvement, charitable giving, loyalty to both customers and longtime staff. The deli has contributed to its own preservation in another way, helping to set up the Voices of Lombard Street exhibit at the Jewish Museum of Maryland, just around the corner.
When he's run out of reasons, he lands on a simpler conclusion.
"Plus, our food really is good," he says.
It's at least good enough to name after family members. Sandwich names he's added include the "Ali and Tina Tuna" (tuna salad, melted Swiss, lettuce, tomato) after his daughter; the "Jessica Special" (smoked turkey breast, pastrami, Swiss, slaw, Russian dressing) for his niece; the "Slammin' Sam" (thick-cut salami, pepper cheese, onion, tomato) for his grandson.
And it's at least good enough to wait a good half-hour for lunch: Nothing is prepared ahead of time here.
"Everyone knows there's a line, and everyone is willing to wait," Attman says.
Usually, they're waiting for a corned-beef sandwich or Reuben, which starts in what looks like a giant keg, but filled with 300 pounds of cow. It will all be brined and cooked down to half that weight before being shaved down to form the core of menu items like "The Gay Liveration" -- 14 ounces topped with chopped liver, Swiss, lettuce and Bermuda onion.
For its centennial, Attman's has some small changes in the works or just completed. The kitchen received a $400,000 upgrade this year; next year, there will be a new ceiling and a new bathroom. The doorway from the service area to the dining room will be widened. Attman is mulling a new sandwich to name for a local charity, to which proceeds from its sales will be donated.
Other than that, the future of Attman's is uncertain. Though Attman boasts of his deli's longtime family ownership, he readily admits that may have to change -- there's simply no one else in line eager to take over, and at his age, it's getting hard.
He does know this much, though:
"I know we're gonna open tomorrow," he says.
(Copyright 2015 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
