Urban Deli Tag urban deli Page 16 | Urban Deli

Posted on July 14, 2009 Posted by Urban Deli

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!

Posted on July 13, 2009 Posted by Urban Deli

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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!

Posted on July 12, 2009 Posted by Urban Deli

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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.

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.)

Posted on July 11, 2009 Posted by Urban Deli

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A bit of entertaining

Tonight 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.)

And 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 …?

Posted on July 10, 2009 Posted by Urban Deli

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It has only been quiet online

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.)

Posted on June 29, 2009 Posted by Urban Deli

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Because you asked, our hours will be …

Dan left a comment asking what our hours would be so we went to Liz and asked, “So, what will the hours be?” (We thought it would be good to know when we’d be working.)

So here they are, though this is tentative. (see update at the end of the post). Hours (for the first week, at least):

Monday – Saturday 11 a.m. – 8pm

And that’s the plan. We’ll try to make these official very soon, so we don’t have to say “tentative” anymore. Think of the Deli, when it opens, as being in a “beta” stage, as the software people like to say. As we get feedback from people, we’ll likely make changes to make it better and as close to what you expect as possible.

An update:

Thanks to the comments, we realized we should provide a more for information on our hours.

One of the reasons we say “tentative” is because things like the hours the Deli is open could change. Originally, Liz had the Deli going to be open till 11:00pm. But we decided to have it 8:00pm, at least for the first week, to get a sense for how things are operating and what people like and/or don’t like, and what is actually practical.

After the first week, Liz is thinking of having the Urban Deli open till 11:00pm Thursday through Saturday. It’s a bit of a balancing act though between what people would like and what the economics allow us to do. But we definitely would like to be open and available later in the evening for those people looking for somewhere to drop in after a show or other engagement.

Posted on June 24, 2009 Posted by Urban Deli

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Yes, we have an opening date

With so many things that can (and sometimes do) go sideways, we’re been reluctant to nail down an opening date. We’ve had a few in mind, but they all depended on certain things being done, delivered, installed and okay-ed etc. We were worried we’d announce a date then have to apologize and postpone it.

Well, now we can say when we’ll officially open: July 13 (that’s a Monday).

The sigh of relief you may have heard was probably from Liz, the owner and mastermind behind the Urban Deli.

Although it’s only mid-week, it’s been going great. This has been inspector week: fire, health, city and so on. So far, the fire and health people have been in and everything’s thumbs up.

So all systems are go as we make our way to the opening: July 13.

We hope to see you here (Urban Deli, 68 King Street, Saint John). We’re very anxious to hear what you think, what suggestions you may have and so on. And if you think something is not quite right, could use some tweaking or whatever, please be kind! 🙂

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