How We Eat: Lunch Break
Posted on Friday, July 9th, 2010
by block club
By Ben Siegel
Inside the contemporary office building on Delaware Avenue that now stands between Babeville––Ani DiFranco’s church-turned-arts center––and the WGRZ-TV news studios, is one of the most recognizable names in Buffalo’s food dynasty. You wouldn’t know from the looks of it, though. This sleek new structure, standing five stories tall and housing offices for M&T Bank and Conestoga-Rovers & Associates, an environmental engineering agency, screams the future. In this kind of office building, hummus wraps and Blackberry teleconferences constitute the new American business lunch. Which is why the presence of Risa Paonessa, tucked into the back of the lobby, carving away at a generations-old corned beef family recipe, is such a warm surprise.
Risa continues the tradition set forth by her father at his Hertel Avenue deli, Stumpy’s, known for its corned beef and other Jewish deli delicacies. Risa worked and later managed her father’s restaurant before closing the doors in 1997. She opened her own deli on Hertel in 2003, but when her lease there ran its course she closed and looked for a new location. The prospects of being downtown were promising, with the legal and medical corridors easily positioned for ample counter and catering traffic. It appears her new patrons, many of whom wear suits and converse in banking lingo, are happy to have her. They are a far cry from the Italian and Jewish retirees––“you know, street people,” she says––who populated Hertel, but downtown, Risa has settled in comfortably. Here, she is both doting mother, with her daily pot of matzo ball soup, and fellow businessperson.
Some don’t know what a matzo ball is. “A lot of the workers in the building ask, ‘What’s a matzo ball?’” she says. The Jewish dumpling––made from ground matzo (which is made from flour and water), egg and chicken fat––is served in a big bowl of hearty chicken soup, with vegetables and thick homestyle noodles. It’s mother incarnate. “You know, maybe people don’t like corned beef, but I won’t find someone who doesn’t like this soup. Talk about comfort food,” she says. “When you’re not feeling good: chicken soup!”
It’s that caring nature that has kept Risa’s kitchen busy the last few years. She has regulars at her new downtown location just the same as when she was on Hertel Avenue, where she had been known to have your regular order ready by the time you walked in the door. “We always knew what all the customers ate. Sometimes before they walked in the door, it was ready. That’s customer service. There’s certainly not enough of that anymore. I tell people, tell me what you want. We’ll make it for you [even] if it’s not on the menu. If I have it, we can do whatever you want,” she says with her familiar sly smile. Risa’s wisecracks are as legendary as her sandwiches. “I’m the boss.”
It’s her fatherís popular corned beef that is the draw for many. The pickled brisket is popular in many ethnic kitchens, from the Irish to the Jewish. But even those who are difficult to persuade might change their tune once they take a bite, Risa says. “If they say they don’t like corned beef, I say, ‘Well why don’t you try this corned beef?’ Ours is different,” she says. “So just try it.”
Just as locations of businesses change over the years, so does the clientele. On Hertel, where at any time of day you could see a small table of guys wearing caps and playing cards, more traditional New York deli fare was popular. In her new space, suits come in for quick business lunches, which Risa points out now includes more salad and wrap orders than ever before. And in the breakneck of the afternoon, it’s a rush for the sweets. “I can’t keep up with brownies,” she says. “Three o’clock in the afternoon, people come down here for those brownies. They need that afternoon pick-me-up.”
Ask anyone whoís been to either location of Risa’s Deli, and they’ll vouch for her ability to pick anybody up, in a bowl of soup or between two slices of Jewish rye. Generations of customers have been coming back for a taste of Stumpy’s or a bowl of Risa’s. “The people my parents had, I get those people back. It seems like every store we’ve been in, the same people come back.”
Ed Beenau (Mary's son) says: August 29th, 2010 at 6:32 pm
Hi Risa, just found this; glad to see you are keeping the restaurant tradition going!