Owning a restaurant is no piece of cake. A lot goes into what you see on the menu. It’s a balancing act of flavor, food costs and customer expectations. They’re decisions diners rarely see, but can make or break a business.
William Thompson, who co-owns Celebrity Delly in Falls Church with his wife, Julie Rossler-Thompson, is showing how the sausage gets made with a new blog called Behind the Slicer. Since launching it May 20, he’s covered a range of topics, including a deep dive on cheesesteaks and the role of a Jewish deli.
That smorgasbord is the idea, Thompson says. “Mainly it’s just my thoughts about food, the industry,” he says. But he also wants to let people know the thought process behind menu changes. “A lot of times I feel like a business changes something and there’s no outlet for the customers to actually understand why something happened. The hope is that with the blog, if something does happen, people understand why we’re going the direction that we’re going.”
Cost-Benefit Analyses
One topic he plans to cover is costs. In Northern Virginia, food prices have climbed 4.5% and the cost of dining out has increased 3.7%Â in the past year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Plus, Fairfax County’s 4% food and beverage tax, which affects Falls Church, took effect Jan. 1, adding to the existing 6% state sales tax. That brought total taxes on meals to 10%.
“It’s detrimental to our industry,” Thompson says. Not everyone wants to pay $20 for a sandwich, Thompson says. For instance, today, a full Reuben at Celebrity Delly costs $25. Before Covid, it was $13. When beef prices soared in 2023, he got creative and added a half-sandwich option to the menu. It cost $13 and a full was $20. Now, the half costs $20.
One idea he’s cooking up to combat today’s rising prices is swapping out the Scoopers—two or three scoops of chicken, egg or tuna salads served with pita triangles, lettuce, tomato and cucumber slices, and coleslaw—with smaller, more noshable and shareable items.
“What I’m focusing on is the ‘girl dinner’ concept,” aka lighter, snackable fare, Thompson says. The Scoopers would become “deli flights and you can do a deli grazing board with a Caesar salad or chicken salad, tuna salad, pita, and you can share. Food costs are a real priority of why we have to do something like this.” By providing smaller dishes, he can keep prices lower while staying true to the deli’s identity.
Nostalgic Noshes
Most recently, he wrote about the emotional relationship people have with meals. In a way, that’s the secret sauce behind Celebrity Delly’s staying power. Many people remember visiting a deli with their parents and grandparents. So, eating corned beef on rye can be nostalgic.
“It’s a very personal thing, consuming food,” Thompson says. “I think food is such a memory-driven feature that we try to keep holding onto it, and that keeps people coming back, because you can’t go back in time, but you can at least try to taste it” again.
He plans to post to the blog weekly. Future topics that he says are, ahem, half-baked right now include hospitality, restaurant culture and brunch.
Blog 2.0
This is actually the blog’s comeback story. Thompson first launched it in 2020 to “tell people what our plans are, what we’re thinking, talking about our story, about the history.”
That history goes way back. The New York-style Jewish deli first opened in Rockville in 1975. Founder Chuck Rossler moved it to Falls Church four years later. Since his death in 2016, his daughter and Thompson have continued ladling bowls of matzo ball soup and plating overstuffed pastrami sandwiches.
But as the blog got going, social media stories became a thing. “TikTok was one of the things we decided we really need to start focusing on, so it took the time away from focusing on the blog,” Thompson says. He stopped blogging in 2022 or 2023.
Returning to this old-school style of info-sharing now is a conscious decision, he adds. “Social media feels like it’s just full of AI content for the sake of content, and when you start getting over-inundated with that style of media, I feel like hearing a voice that is somebody speaking again or reading what their thoughts are again, instead of just something that feels automated, I think that makes it more interesting,” Thompson says.
Find Celebrity Delly at 7263 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church, in Graham Park Plaza.