Zayde’s NYC Deli opens a café in East Memphis
Zayde’s NYC Deli now has a brickand-mortar location.
This popular kosher meal delivery service now has a café called “Zayde’s at the J” inside the Memphis Jewish Community Center, 6560 Poplar Ave.
“When we had our catering business, we saw a lot of need for the kosher community for grab-and-go things ready to eat,” said Marisa Baggett, Zayde’s chef and owner.
The new deli located just inside the front door of the Memphis Jewish Community Center offers both lunch and dinner. For now, the menu is available just for to-go. Once COVID-19 capacity restrictions for the community center are lifted, a casual seating area will be added. Everyone is welcome, even if you are not a member of the Jewish Community Center.
“We are excited to have an actual location and to finally have a kitchen of our own,” said Baggett, adding that once the center’s pool opens for the summer Zayde’s will also have a poolside kiosk. “We will basically be opening two restaurants out of this one kitchen.”
The eats
Baggett describes the café menu as a “hybrid,” serving both traditional New York deli dishes as well as hip Israeli fusion dishes.
“We are going to have fun with it,” she said. “We will have the classics, but also some fun and different items.”
The options include hot and cold dishes prepared to order, plus a graband-go case of prepackaged foods for those in a hurry.
The New York deli-style fare includes sandwiches created with her housemade pastrami and corned beef, as well as matzo ball soup and knishes.
Dishes inspired by the current fusion trends in Israel include grain bowls, hummus dishes and flatbreads.
For example, the “J Bagel + Hummus” is a house-made Jerusalem bagel with hummus topped with olive oil and za’atar spice blend.
Baggett has also created a sandwich version of a Sabich vegetarian pita. “It is one of the most delicious things I have ever eaten,” she said as she described this sandwich made with hummus, grilled eggplant, roasted red peppers, soft-boiled egg and marinated cucumbers. Her “reinvented” version is served on fresh challah bread.
While the lunch menu is geared more toward quick items like sandwiches, salads and grain bowls, the dinner menu features several flatbreads and entrees, as well as a few appetizers.
Appetizers like her “Zayde’s Little Oneg” chicken liver (that Yiddish saying translates to “Grandfather’s Little Delight”) are given Baggett’s unique modern spin. This particular dish is a chicken liver pate served with fried crispy chicken skins and chicken fat shmeared on toasted points. “I upgraded a classic chicken liver dish a little with all the different components,” she said.
As with her previous meal delivery service, the offerings are 100% kosher. Her kosher kitchen is under the supervision of the Vaad Hakehilloth of Memphis.
A little background about Baggett
Baggett launched her kosher food delivery service in June 2019.
“I was working full time at Temple Israel as a Judaic specialist, and even though I am a trained chef, I was struggling to get together Shabbat dinner when working,” Baggett said.
Baggett thought to herself, “Someone should do this.” Then she quickly realized she was that person.
But Baggett hasn’t always cooked out of a kosher kitchen.
After “moving to the big city” when she closed her Starkville, Mississippi, eatery “The Chocolate Giraffe,” she went to work for chef Ben Smith at Tsunami. While there, she decided to go to sushi school, receiving accreditation from the California Sushi Academy. Soon thereafter, she returned home and helped chef Karen Carrier open Do Sushi, a sushi bar adjacent to The Beauty Shop, in 2003.
After her stint at Do Sushi, Baggett said she branched out on her own — writing two cookbooks, “Sushi Secrets” and “Vegetarian Sushi Secrets,” and traveling across the country doing live cooking demos.