Zabar's is a delicatessen covering a large stretch of Broadway between 80th and 81st Streets on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It is one of New York's most celebrated food shops.
The store was founded in 1934 by Louis and Lilly Zabar, Jewish refugees from pogroms in Ukraine, as an "appetizing counter" in a Daitch store. By 1950 there were five Zabars scattered along Broadway, but Saul Zabar, who took over when his father died that year, consolidated them into a single location.
By the early 1960s Zabar's was losing $200,000 a year and Saul considered selling, but found no buyers. Instead he and his brother Stanley hired Murray Klein, an ex-employee, to run day-to-day operations. Klein was a hustler who had been an arms smuggler and black marketeer in Europe. He piled goods high, hung salamis from the ceiling and turned Zabar's into a food bazaar. In 1983 Klein launched a "Great Caviar War" with Macy's, both stores driving caviar prices to the bottom. The war did wonders for Zabar's caviar sales. Klein's three decades in charge gave the store a new lease of life.
The store attracts around 40,000 customers a week, selling some 8,000lb of coffee and 2,000lb of smoked fish weekly. Nova (smoked salmon) is the bestseller in the fish department. Zabar's stocks at least 800 kinds of cheese, olives in every variety, and hot-and-cold take-out meals. Cookware occupies the upper floor.
Four generations of Zabars have worked in the store, alongside around 250 mainly Latino staff. The store's motto, inherited from founder Louis Zabar, is "Highest quality at the lowest price."
Zabar's outlasted many of the former "appetizing" shops of the Upper West Side. In Saul Zabar's youth the neighbourhood was largely immigrant, commercial and rough; by the 1970s it was becoming an elegant, gentrifying neighbourhood of professionals. The store adapted, stocking Nocellara olives, Saint Agur cheese and Japanese knives alongside traditional Jewish fare such as babka, rugelach, latkes, knishes, blintzes and bagels.
Of course he was all in favour of Armageddon in *general* terms.