Update on our Facebook schmozzle

We just wanted to let you know what is up with the Urban Deli on Facebook. It’s simple: nothing. 🙁

Unfortunately we’re dealing with a schmozzle and can’t access our account! It gets more alarming each day because when last we looked, we had 89 fans (many thanks!).

What is really frustrating is that we’ve tried to contact Facebook but their approach seems to be to simply ignore any and all emails. We’ve emailed a number of their support addresses but, despite waiting a month or so, have received nothing.

The problem exists in the email address associated with the account. Facebook appears to allow only one account to be associated with an address and when the same email address was associated with a personal account, access to the Urban Deli account vanished like smoke.

So .. we are working to fix this because we have things to put up there and we don’t want people to think we’re ignoring them. But currently we’re at a loss as to what to do to get this straightened out.

By the way, if you have any ideas on how to fix this mess, please let us know. It is very, very frustrating.

Hmm … Guess you could say this was our first official blog rant.

Hope your weekend has been good. And we hope to see you next week at the deli!

Share

King Street reboot – living it up, uptown

There is story in the Telegraph-Journal today that highlights the Urban Deli as it talks about, “… a resurgence of commercial activity on King Street, the spine of the uptown core.” The story is I’d like a King Street redo, hold the pickle and even has a pic of Liz and the deli.

We’re pretty sure that with the other businesses on King and with the kind of activity we’re seeing that it won’t be long before people are asking, “Is this the same King Street? There are so many people! So much going on!”

Well, if Liz and her team have anything to do with it, that will be the case.

Although only open a few days, we’ve seen loads of people, heard lots of stories and made a huge number of new friends. One thing that seems to catch the eye of the people who come in is our Muffuletta sandwich.

Now, you can search it on the web and find out what it is but what you probably won’t see are details on the Urban Deli’s take on the Muffuletta. So we’re trying to get Liz’s sister (who is kind of an encyclopedia of food) to sit down and write us a brief description that we can post.

Hopefully she will soon (despite running around all day helping out at the deli) and we can put that online for you.

Share

Thank you for yesterday, today and tomorrow

If our posts read a bit schmoozy these days it’s because we have oodles of people to thank and we’re a bit giddy with all that has been happening.

Yesterday we opened and now that we’re in business it’s time to get down to the real business of serving up food and being a rock solid restaurant people want to come back to. You could probably call the next little while our “beta” phase as we tweak this and that and make changes based on the feedback we get.

As we’ve probably mentioned, there are far too many people to thank to list. We’ve had so much help and so many good wishes it’s more than a little humbling. Liz would like to mention Hillary (the Urban Deli’s manager), Alan and Eli (the guys cooking up the food – that’s Eli in the picture) and everyone in the kitchen and on the floor helping her provide the best service possible (one of her obsessions).

You’ll notice that while it took a while to get our menu posted, it’s now up and in a number of formats. There’s the Menu page. Then there’s the “prettified” .pdf format (in the right hand column), part one and part two. And then there is one other .pdf format version, that is strictly a text version for a printer friendly version.

If you’re scratching your head about desserts (like My Saint John was), that is a work-in-progress (the downside of a beta phase). But they are coming – we hope to have those available in about a week.

If you have some time, please pay us a visit today. Drop by for a bite!

Share

Yes, today is the day

We open today. It’s hard to believe that after all this dreaming and all this talking and all the decisions – not to mention all the hard work everyone has put in – but, yes, it has arrived. Today we open!

Doors will be open at 11:00 this morning and we’ll be anxiously waiting.

If you would like, you can have a look at the Urban Deli menu. (The link is in the navigation at the top as well.)

We haven’t had a chance to put the “prettified” version up yet in a .pdf format but we will soon. For now, we just have the information up on the page plus a “plain jane” version available in .pdf format that is printable, if that’s what you choose to do.

Hope we get a chance to see you sometime today and you can help us populate those tables you see in the picture!

Share

Preview night at the Urban Deli

Wow! What a great night! After a day getting ready, the Urban Deli hosted a private evening for friends and other guests and we had a ball.

Our Flickr account is full of some pics from the evening, some are not as good as we’d like but that’s due to the kitchen and every one else moving so quickly and purposefully. They were busy bees, so to speak. But everyone had fun. And it felt wonderful to finally get everything going and serving food, our raison d’être.

There’s no way to list everyone who dropped by to say ‘Hi!’ and wish us well. This post would go on forever if we did.

Smoked meat sandwiches from the Urban Deli kitchen.

For example, Peter from Happinez (the winebar over on Princess) came by, as did Jason from Billy’s Seafood in the City Market and Sean from Red Whale Coffee (who supplies our coffees and teas – if coffee or tea is your thing, he’s the guy to talk to) … We could go on and on. (Oh yes, Christoph from CM Woodcraft Inc. –  he’s the man who built our incredible communal table – he paid us a visit too. And the table was a huge success!)

Let’s just say Liz and everyone at the Urban Deli thank all of you – it made us feel fabulous! And we hope to keep seeing you, and everyone else in Saint John and elsewhere on Monday and onward, when we’re open and doing our thing every day.

(Menu will be up on the site later today.)

I think, if nothing else, we can say this about the night – everyone was stuffed! Thanks to the kitchen and thanks again to everyone who came by!

(By the way … Sorry if this post comes off as giddily schmoozy or something like that, but we honestly had a blast followed by a sense of great relief – and we really do have about a gazillion people to thank.)

Share

A bit of entertaining

deli_front01_300Tonight we’ll be entertaining a number of people we’ve invited to the Deli for a little evening sampling of some of our menu – yes, we do have one (ta da!) and we’ll be posting it shortly.

We’ll have things like Montreal Smoked Meat – we are a deli, after all.

But also our split pea with ham soup, roasted garlic and artichoke dip – seasoned pita chips for dipping, our schnitzel sandwich – breaded pork, warm sauerkraut, swiss cheese and dijon aioli … and so on. (All those we’ll be on our regular menu.)

deli_walk01_300And we’re still busily working for tonight’s entertaining and for our Monday opening.

It’s beautiful in Saint John today now that the fog has lifted. It’s so nice we noticed on King Street today that across from us there’s a crosswalk sign and the little guy appears to be walking, with a determined stride, right to the Urban Deli!

Maybe he knows something …?

Share

It has only been quiet online

One of our Urban Deli images.If we’ve appeared to have become oddly quiet it has only been here, on the site. At the Deli it has been anything but. In fact, it’s been a madhouse! But …

It’s been organized, purposeful bedlam as we work to get everything in place for our opening – which is in just a few days! This is Friday? We’ve only 3 days to go before Monday.

Yes, we’re working our buns off (no pun intended).

By the way, we have most of our staff but we are still looking for some help in the kitchen – line cooks and prep cooks. So if that’s your line, or you know someone who might be interested, let us know!

(By the way, all those italics and exclamation marks? That just refects our high level of excitement and the adrenalin running through us. We’re usually much more calm. Really.)

Share