Pike Place Market is a nine-acre, 100-year-old farmers’ market style operation near the Seattle waterfront. It’s an extremely popular tourist attraction filled with handicrafts, floral arrangements, and souvenirs. It’s also a place where locals shop for the highest quality and widest variety of seafood, meats, produce, and hard-to-find comestibles.

Jon Jacobs has done an amazing job in a minuscule 105-square-foot stall near the main entrance to Pike Place market. His
I Love New York Deli (which opened in November of 2007) is squeezed between a booth that sells Lebanese-style whipped garlic and one that fries miniature donuts while you wait; and, he’s within earshot of the Pike Place Fish Market, where fishmongers toss huge freshly-caught salmon back and forth to entertain customers.

Jon grew up in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, but he's lived in the Pacific Northwest since 1977. He’d long agonized over the dearth of deli food in Seattle.

For the past twelve years Jon dreamed of owning a New York-style Jewish delicatessen, even though he’d never even worked in one. No matter. His love and knowledge of deli food shines through and more than makes up for any lack of behind-the-counter experience.

   I Love New York Deli is strictly a to-go
   operation, but there’s a small area
   nearby with stools and counters where
   you can sit down and more or less relax
   while you're enjoying your sandwich.
 
   Jacobs carries no appetizing, but you
   can get just about any kind of overstuffed
   deli sandwich you want: corned beef, beef
   brisket, pastrami, turkey breast, pickled
   tongue, roast beef, chopped liver, Kosher
   salami, and, of course, Reubens.
 
   Jon brings in most of the meats from East
   Coast purveyors. A local bakery bakes two    types of rye bread especially for him.

Jacobs makes the chopped liver himself on the premises, as well as real matzo ball soup, potato salad, cole slaw, and a wide variety of knishes, both sweet and savory.

Remember, he does all the buying, cooking, slices the meat, builds sandwiches, runs the cash register, and schmoozes with customers in a space about 10 x 10 feet, with just one helper!

I Love New York Deli may not be a full-service sit-down deli, but it’s the best delicatessen food currently available in the entire state of Washington.

Jon Jacobs has great ambitions. He wants to open a real sit-down deli in the near future. I wish him well, and look forward to being one of his first customers. In the meantime, I’ll stop in for a nosh whenever I’m at Pike Place Market.