Category: Communal table

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A night in December at the Deli

It’s the season for get-togethers and last night we hosted Avant-Garde Construction and Management Inc. for their Christmas party. If you look at the photo below you’ll see they were seated at our long communal table.

What kind of food might be involved at a Christmas party at the Urban Deli? For Avant-Garde it began with appetizers. We served up roasted garlic and artichoke dip, bacon  wrapped scallops and char crusted pork tenderloin. There was also a choice of seafood chowder, spinach salad, caesar salad, or house salad.

For the main course guests had a choice of smoked whole lobster (smoked in house, at the Deli), rack of ribs, smoked herb crusted 1/2 chicken accompanied by rice garlic mashed potatoes or fries (our potato frites).

And for dessert it was a choice of molten chocolate cake, our now famous sour cream lemon pie or a candy cane cheese cake.

We also had some evening musical entertainment provided by Jessica Darrah.

And that was our Saturday night at the Urban Deli. A big thank you to everyone, including our wonderful staff, and a Merry Christmas to Avant-Garde!

Avant Garde at the Urban Deli.

The Avant Garde Christmas party at the Urban Deli. That's our Liane on the left and way off in the background you can see Jessica Darrah performing. Photo via Gord's phone.

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A little history on our communal table

We’ve found quite a few people interested in the story of our communal table. Where’s it from? Who made it?

Gord, who has been one of the stalwart people behind getting the deli up and running, put together a bit of information on the table for us.

Apart from the food, one of the most unique aspects of the Urban Deli, if not the most unique, is our communal table, a concept that finds its roots in Europe – food and community, natural companions.

There is a local history behind our communal Table. The wood itself is pitch pine from the United States and is reported to be between 400 and 500 years old.

It was originally a single support beam in the Saint John Lantic Sugar Cane factory, which was built in 1912 and decommissioned in 2000.

The table is made of approximately 400 square board feet of lumber. The tabletop is fourteen feet of continuous lumber, made of two-inch thick, six-inch wide single strips, which have been laminated together to create the 36-inch width. The base is made in two sections with the total weight being well over 400 lbs.

The beam was purchased from and milled by Hunter Lake Lumber of New Brunswick.

What you see today in the Urban Deli is a table commissioned and created by local carpentry artisan  (via Germany) Christoph Malinowski of CM Woodcrafters Inc.

The end result is a beautiful, lovingly made communal table, an idea that allows patrons to sit down and enjoy our Urban Deli food while also enjoying the friendly Saint John community as they meet both new and old friends.

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    Our communal table

    Liz is particularly excited about the Urban Deli’s communal table (sometimes referred to as a “sharing table”). And what’s a communal table? As the name suggests, it’s a table where anyone and everyone can sit down to enjoy, not simply the food, but each other’s company. Some people are reluctant to try it because it’s not the way they are use to dining. But once they do try it, most love it.

    At the Deli, we thought, “Atlantic Canada is famous for how friendly everyone is. Where better to have a communal table?

    Our table was built by Christoph Malinowski of CM Woodcraft Inc. And the craftsmanship that went into it is amazing. If you see Liz and ask her about it, be ready to sit down for a while because she’ll go on and on about the table, Christoph and how thrilled she is to have it.

    As for communal tables, they’re new but not really. According to an item from the Seattle Times, “Across Europe, in bistros and beer halls, tavernas, trattorias and tapas bars, people are accustomed to eating at large shared tables.”

    You don’t have to go to Europe to see them, however. They’ve become increasingly popular in places like New York, Seattle, Montreal, Los Angeles and most other major centres. A story about communal tables in San Francisco from the San Francisco Chronicle provides a good sense of what they are like (including the romantic aspects!).

    So … we’re pretty excited, especially Liz, with the possibilities of our table. And don’t fret, there will be other, more traditional tables for those reluctant to give it a try. We suspect, however, when you see how others are enjoying the communal dining experience, you’ll want to give it a try too.

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