S&M III Polish Deli

Despite research on the Internet and advice from personal Polish friends, it was nearly impossible to find a Polish restaurant on Staten Island. Although, there was one popular restaurant located in St. George, but because of Hurricane Sandy, it closed and has yet to reopen. The second best we could find as a group was a Polish Deli. The deli was just as hard to locate. Because it’s a small, family orientated store, it couldn’t be found on the Internet. We found it because one of us passes it by en route to school.

 

The deli is found in a crowded area on Hylan Blvd., between two car dealerships. The building it’s located in has a dent in the structure, and that is where deli is placed. It is very easy to miss if you aren’t looking for it. Finding parking was difficult. After we parked in a parking lot up the block, we realized the deli plaza had a parking lot, but you needed to enter from the side streets. The entire process was very confusing for someone going for their first time.

When you enter the deli, the first thing you notice is the friendly cashier who greets you in her native tongue, Polish, of course. Polish music is playing in the background and it was actually pleasant to listen to. When we started to parade around the store looking for things that would catch our eye, we stopped at nearly every other piece of merchandise. It was difficult for something not to catch your eye.

Nothing was written in English. All the wrappers were written in Polish, and the only way to determine what something said was by playing with the visual context clues on the packaging. The sign outside the store says Polish- American food, however it was very difficult to find more than five items in the entire store that could be found in a regular supermarket, like Pathmark. When we asked the cashier the reason for this, she explained they want to attract mostly Polish people because that’s who their “business is centered around. Sure there are some American customers once in a while, but for the most part we try to accommodate our culture.”

Most of the products in the store were typical things you could find at a deli, but with a Polish twist. There was a section for cold cuts which consisted mostly of polish sausage and the like. Juice and chocolates were their specialty. They had entire walls of different fruit juices from the company “Tymbark,” which turned out to be a popular village in Poland. The chocolates were a mix of Polish and Russian packaging because the two countries manufactured mostly the same treats, as explained by the cashier.

The deli was very culturally based. The food, the music, and the people who worked and shopped there all represented the Polish community. Shopping in the deli is a difficult experience as an American because you don’t know where to begin. Everything felt foreign and exciting; a whole new culture at your fingertips. It was a great experience that opened our eyes to different products that we had no idea were available to us.