When is a delicatessen more than a delicatessen?

by Jack Neely

It's been almost four years since we reported that Harold's Deli was for sale. We're not sure why Harold's is still there, with Harold himself still smiling in his window behind his cash register, and it seems as if it would be bad luck to ask. We can only be thankful for it.

He has, in fact, been there for 50 years this Tuesday. He opened the place in 1948, several weeks before Truman beat Dewey. He was here before Knoxville had television, before the Soviet Union had the bomb, before Hank Williams had the Lovesick Blues. Harold's has been open for most of the 20th Century.

It's one of those places that makes Northern urbanites feel at home, a rare diner that might remind you of a snug little prewar delicatessen on Delancey Street. There's intimate seating, old pictures on the walls, good kosher sandwiches, a display case up front with pickled tomatoes, nova lox, various cheeses, Polish sausage.

At the same time, there's no other place quite so Knoxvillian. Harold Shersky, the namesake and proprietor, was born right around the corner on old East Vine, almost 80 years ago. He bought this place in 1948, a place that had already been a kosher grocery for some years before that, even back before the War. Harold and and his wife Adeline say that when they moved into the place, they introduced several basic commodities to Knoxville, from sour cream to Sara Lee pastries. "We could've tied that up," Harold says, but he sounds like he doesn't lose much sleep over it.

When he opened the doors that Wednesday in the late summer of '48, Harold never guessed he was in for a half-century run. Over the years, Harold's has mutated from a kosher grocery with a restaurant on the side, to a restaurant with some kosher groceries on the side. But hardly any place in Knoxville that's not a church has changed less in 50 years. Unusual among Knoxville restaurants, Harold's suffers almost no employee turnover. Sam, Steve, Tony, Sandy, Reba, Bill—they've all worked here for years and years; decades, even. But none have been quite so loyal as Adeline Shersky, who married Harold years before they opened Harold's. Asked why Harold's has lasted so long, she shakes her head. "Harold's a workaholic," she says, as if she can't quite understand his energy and doesn't wholly approve of it. He's here slicing beef for sandwiches every morning at 4:30, even on Saturdays.

Hardly anybody else works downtown on Saturday mornings. At 9 a.m., you could play hockey on Gay Street without bothering anybody. Downtown's office buildings are completely vacant, there won't be anything going on in the theaters or nightclubs for 12 hours yet, most Old City clerks don't open their shops until late morning. Not even the coffee houses are open. There's no obvious clientele for a kosher deli on Gay Street to serve.

But Harold's is packed. When you walk in you can't help but say about a dozen howdies, then find a stool at the counter if there is one, and see if you can borrow a leftover sports section, then ask Reba for some eggs and baloney or corned beef or lox. It's no special occasion. It's like this most Saturdays. Sometimes you have to stand, wait for one of the 40 seats to empty.

Shyness isn't allowed at Harold's. If you look like you're down in the dumps, Reba will tell you so and suggest you snap out of it. She's 71, but like most people who work at Harold's, looks much younger than she is.

Behind the counter, Steve and big Sam seem to enjoy a crowd as much as Harold does. They'll tell you about the glory days of high school basketball, when Austin-East and Rule ruled, when only the Civic Coliseum could contain the crowd when they played each other.

Harold's does steady breakfast-and-lunch business through the week, too. He says he mourns the passing of the mom-and-pop store, says people only want fast food these days. But the Sherskys are a mom-and-pop, and in the last 20 years on Gay Street they've seen McDonald's and Wendy's come—and then go. Neither were quite as popular downtown as Harold's. Meanwhile, they're still making a living. They're open about 10 hours a day, six days a week.

In front it's urban, maybe the most interesting-looking block on Gay Street, an eclectic cluster of personable old brick buildings with elaborate Victorian facades. It was once a crowded block of pawnshops and cigar stores and saloons.

But if you lean over the counter when the kitchen door's open, you can see the back window to a lush, green East Tennessee hillside. Steve, the counterman, says he often sees rabbits and squirrels playing back there. A couple of years ago, he says, there was a red fox. Steve doesn't know what happened to it.

Harold's proud of his block, and how things seem to be reviving. He's even on good terms with the folks at the mission half a block away. "If I got in trouble, they'd defend me," he says.

Harold's family goes back even farther than he does. His dad was run out of his native Russia by the Cossacks during the anti-Jewish pogroms. We knew him as Robert Shersky, but Harold says in Russia he went by the name Reuben. He spent some time in Edwardian England, enlisted in the British Army. He came to Knoxville sometime before 1912. Robert Shersky spoke five languages, including Yiddish and Polish.

"There used to be quite a Polish colony here," says Harold. "When they found out Dad spoke Polish, they'd come here just to talk to him." Robert Shersky first worked as a tailor and a grocer, and had run a meat market on 5th Avenue, but eventually came to spend most of his time helping his son out at the deli.

Harold says many of his customers are Jews, and he makes special provisions for his orthodox customers. But sometimes on Saturday mornings, they're outnumbered by Catholics from Immaculate Conception on the hill behind Harold's. Look around and you see well-known wheeler-dealers, young poets from Fort Sanders, Vol fans, architects, salesmen, politicians. Like no other place, Harold's is Knoxville, distilled.

Late in the morning on a weekday, the breakfast rush has been over for an hour or two. A guy with slicked-back hair sits at the counter. He's been working in a landfill all week, he says, and he's bone-tired. "No place has fountain Cokes like Harold's," he says, finishing one off. "They burn all the way down, just like they used to."

At a table nearby are a couple of actors associated with Carpetbag Theater, the internationally praised African-American troupe. In the back, drinking coffee, is a guy in a three-piece suit who looks like a lawyer. A few minutes ago there was a bassist for a rock band at the counter; smoking a cigarette near him was a thin, quiet old man who could have been J.D. Salinger.

"There's a real cross-section here," Harold says. He doesn't quite understand what he does to attract such a wide variety. "You just try to be nice to people," he says. You're welcome in his store, he says, as long as you're clean. The only reason he's ever had to throw people out is for being dirty. That's happened twice in 50 years.

Ask Harold how he's stayed in business at the same address for half a century, and he'll likely change the subject. "You just open the door in the morning and hope for the best." He's a modest man who's much more comfortable with compliments when they're aimed at you. He'll only admit that staying open for 50 years is "better than the alternative."

You can't know Knoxville until you've been to Harold's. You probably won't know Knoxville after you've been to Harold's, either—but if you're like me, you may learn just how much you don't know.