If you’re a Hunter College student, you may know the Hunter Deli. Located a few blocks away from Hunter on Lexington, it is a cozy deli bustling with customers and employees during lunch hours. As soon as I walked in, I knew it was not a good time to ask for an interview – the line was about seven people long (quite a lot of customers for such a small deli like Hunter Deli) and the employees were ringing up customers as fast as they could. However, I went up to the woman who looked like the owner and preparing for rejection, timidly introduced myself and the project and asked for an interview. To my surprise, she accepted, but was soon whisked away by an urgent phone call and did not reappear for 30 minutes, during which I had a fierce internal conflict about whether I should leave and come back another time or wait a little longer and possibly get the interview. After what seemed like an eternity, the owner came back and apologized for the wait. Eager to get the interview going, I took out my questions and fired away.
Hunter Deli
As I had suspected, Young Kim was an immigrant from Korea (one of the biggest reasons to why I wanted to interview her so badly). Although she was somewhat fluent in English, I realized that interviewing her in Korean would allow her to express her experience more accurately and proceeded to speak to her in Korean. She had been born in Korea in 1955 and immigrated to the United States in 1979, when she was 24 years old. She opened up a vegetable shop at first, but when an Argentinian friend of hers proposed that they open up a deli together, she accepted. The friend was an amazing chef, and when they first opened up the Hunter Deli on Lexington 18 years ago, the Deli was the only store that sold food on the block.
Almost every customer at Hunter Deli is a regular. However, as times changed the customers had changed as well. As Young said, “Now, a lot of rich people are moving into the area – after all, this is the Upper East side. They bring a lot of construction workers with them because they want to renovate the buildings around here. Before, the customers used to be just local people. Today, we serve a lot of construction workers.” She also stated that although the location does not allow for a variety of customers, it guarantees a lot of regulars, all the time.
When I asked Young what the biggest obstacle the deli was facing today was, she let out a deep sigh. After thinking, she slowly mentioned how the deli had not increased the prices much since they had first opened – a good thing for customers, but a not so good thing for the deli. “Everything but our prices increase,” she said, “Minimum wage, rent, ingredient costs – they all increase, but we can’t increase our prices. Why? The customers will complain. Everything increases but we can’t increase our prices, and that’s why we barely get any profit nowadays. It’s also the reason why it’s so hard to find employees these days – our workers want to be paid more, especially after the minimum wage increase, but we can’t afford to pay them as much as other businesses do because we just don’t have that kind of leisure. The government doesn’t help us either – they increase the rent without implementing any kind of law that will help mom and-pop-stores like ours.” Young continued on to say that she wished that there were benefits for businesses that had been open for a long time like hers, such as beneficial advertising.
When I asked if there was anything she would like to change about the deli, she said that she wished that the landlord would give her a few months of free rent so that she could renovate the deli to be cleaner and bigger. In addition, when I asked what would improve the location for the deli, she replied, “This location keeps changing – the people change and the business change. All we can do is adapt to those changes and hope for the best.”
As I wrapped up the interview, Young told me to come back often for their sandwiches and hot food, which she guarantees are delicious. I had bought sandwiches at the Hunter Deli a few times before, and Young wasn’t kidding about them being delicious. Although I haven’t tried a variety of sandwiches, I can assure you – the chicken reuben is amazing.
