Pastrami, latkes from Canter’s Deli delivered to your door
We’re not getting the endless pickles, brown and cream dishware or celebrity sightings, but Canter’s Deli, the iconic Jewish delicatessen of Los Angeles, is now available on the Peninsula and in South San Jose via a partnership with DoorDash.
As first reported by J. The Jewish News of Northern California, DoorDash users in Atherton, Belmont, Menlo Park, Palo Alto, Redwood City, San Carlos and Woodside can pick up or get delivery of Canter’s matzo ball soup, latkes and pastrami, corned beef and veggie Reuben sandwiches.
The food, including coleslaw, potato salad and those pickles, are prepared at DoorDash Kitchens in Redwood City, and are also available at Westfield Oakridge in South San Jose for delivery or to go. The concept had its soft opening a month ago.
“We’ve been doing this 90 years, it’s in our blood,” says Marc Canter, third-generation restaurateur, on the phone from Los Angeles. “They’re putting the staple items on a small menu and testing it out in the right markets.”
As Canter explains it, DoorDash reached out to him to as part of its DoorDash Kitchens, which helps restaurants test new concepts and expand their geographic reach — in this case, to Northern California — with minimal financial investment on their part.
They sent a chef to Southern California,
where Canter’s has restaurants in Los Angeles’ Fairfax district, Pasadena and Santa Monica, to learn how exactly they make their food, especially the sandwiches.
“How you cook the meat and steam it and cut it properly is very important,” Canter said. “This isn’t Subway where you can just read the directions off a recipe.”
He even followed up via video chat, watching the DoorDash Kitchens chefs in Redwood City make his family’s famous sandwiches.
“I’ve seen their steamer,” he says. “They’re doing it right.”
Canter’s original location in an art deco building on North Fairfax Avenue has been open since 1953. The restaurant has served President Barack Obama, Mick Jagger, Bernie Sanders and Taylor Swift.
Zachary’s Pizza relocating to Pleasanton
After 15 years in San Ramon, Zachary’s Chicago Pizza is packing up the deep-dish pans and moving to Pleasanton.
The employee-owned restaurant expects to be serving its signature stuffed spinach-and-mushroom pizzas at the new site by late July or early August.
“We would love to have been able to remain in San Ramon, but with lease negotiations at a standstill, the opportunity to move our crew and operations to a downtown Pleasanton location was too good to pass up,” Kevin Suto, Zachary’s president, said.
The new Main Street location will feature an outdoor patio, a full bar with craft beers on tap, cocktails and wine, three indoor dining rooms and wall space devoted to Zachary’s biannual customer art contest. On weekdays, a quickservice menu will allow customers to order personal-size pizzas in advance for pickup at lunchtime.
Zachary’s was founded 38 years ago in Oakland by Zach Zachowski and Barbara Gabel. Besides the original Rockridge pizzeria, there are locations in Berkeley, Pleasant Hill and Oakland/Grand Lake.
DETAILS >> The new restaurant will be open daily at 337 Main St., Pleasanton. zacharys.com
Mango Crazy comes to Campbell, San Jose
Several years ago Modesto buddies Larry Rivera and Andy Lopez were working in health care and construction, respectively, but looking to team up on a business. What started out as an ice cream shop in 2014 soon evolved into a fast-casual restaurant serving both sweet and savory treats.
Since then, their Mango Crazy concept has expanded from one location to a dozen, with the two most recent opening in Campbell and South San Jose.
“It’s Mexican street food brought to mainstream America,” Rivera says.
The menu centers on fresh mango, which they source from California farmers or mango farms across South America. The bestselling mangonada combines diced mango and mango nectar with mango sorbet made in-house with fresh mango — plus house-made hot sauce, swirls of apricot-chile chamoy sauce and a sprinkling of Tajin chile-lime seasoning.
There are also fruit cups, banana splits, milkshakes, smoothies and fruit-filled pineapple shells.
On the savory side the top seller is shrimp ceviche, made fresh daily in-house and served as a main or a side dish.
DETAILS >> Open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily at 475 E. Campbell Ave., Campbell, and 5892 Santa Teresa Blvd., San Jose. www. mangocrazy.com