The Onion Roll a victim of pandemic
Owner of beachside deli at Lauderdale-by-the-Sea says sales plummet 80%
The Onion Roll, a year-old deli that rapidly gained a following for its thin-sliced pastrami sandwiches in Lauderdale-by-theSea, has permanently closed in the COVID19 pandemic.
“I regret to inform you all that due to COVID, with a very, very heavy heart, we had to close the doors today,” employee Melissa Ma the us shared Monday night with the Sun Sentinel’s Let’s Eat, South Florida Facebook group. “We thank you from the bottom of our hearts for all of your support. You will all be very missed.”
Theno-frills shop at 4759N. Ocean Blvd. fast became a pit-stop for beachgoers and locals. Arguably its strongest following came from the 26,000-member Let’s Eat, South Florida group, whose members obsessed over the deli’s Sabrett hot dogs, juicy corned beef and kosher matzo ball soup.
Alex Yushkovsky, the affable owner of the Onion Roll, says sales plummeted 80% during statewide lockdowns and never recovered, ruining future plans to expand the Onion Roll’ s growing catering business.
“My heart is bleeding,” says Yushkovsky, 57.“I wish this never happened but the frigging pandemic killed me. I needed to liquidate and sell so I could pay off all my bills .”
Yushkovsky says his deli sat practically empty for months in the Sea Ranch Lakes shopping plaza, yet his usual customer base – Canadian snowbirds, Jewish part-time residents – stopped showing up. “I got so depressed,” he says. “I had to throw away expensive corned beef and pastrami. And the potato and macaroni salad went bad. It was like this for months.”
Yushkovsky isn’t used to feeling like a failure. He immigrated to America in 1977 to escape anti-Semitism in his hometown of Y’vov, Ukraine. With his parents as business partners, he operated the Onion Roll Deli in the Royal Oaks neighborhood of Detroit for 30 years. After what he describes as a “messy divorce,” he sold the business and moved to Boynton Beach but “the deli bug bitme again,” he says.
The Onion Roll debuted in July 2019 with
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a slimmenu of sandwiches, salads and soups. What it lacked in wall décor – few posters or pictures hang inside– the delimadeupfor with flavor.
Along with its two-for-$8.95 Sabrett hot dog deal, local deli-heads raved about its smoked pastrami brisket, a lean, machine-sliced cut from Sy Ginsburg’sMeat & Deli in Detroit.
Why machine- cut
instead of hand-sliced pastrami? Yushkovsky says it’s a personal preference – he used deli slicers in Michigan. And it’s a consistency issue. “Corned beef and pastrami are tough to hand-cut consistently,” says Yushkovsky, who sourced his meats from Davie’s Supreme Foods.
“One piece can be fatty, one too fine. I took a lot of tips from LaSpadas [sandwich shop], which uses a slicer, too.”
If he were to revive the Onion Roll again, possibly with a new investor, Yushkovsky
says the deli would offer breakfast and alcohol, which he believes are key to helping restaurants survive in a post-pandemic world.
South Florida delis have flopped in recent years, even before the COVID-19 pandemic, including Burt Rapoport’s Rappy’s and Junior’s of Brooklyn, both in Boca Raton.
The TooJay’s Deli chain emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in September after shedding multiple delis in Broward and Palm Beach counties.