December 31, 2017

The Weekly Bite: Del Rey Deli Co. in Playa Del Rey

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Playa Del Rey’s Del Rey Deli Co..

So let’s start at the beginning – how’d you get into the restaurant business?
I never woke up as a kid and said “I’m gonna be a sandwich man one day!” But at the end of 2011, I was laid of from my job of about 10 years working at an online photo lab. It took a few weeks of thinking it over, but I decided that I didn’t want to put my fate in the hands of someone else again. With the support of my parents and my wife, Corrina Murdy, I went back to school and earned my Associate’s Degree in restaurant and hospitality management.

A few years prior, I had come aboard as an investor in a friend’s bar/restaurant concept and had enjoyed the work very much. I got to be involved with many things from menu design, to marketing and promotions and I loved it all. So after I graduated, I started looking for a good place to start a business and Playa Del Rey seemed like a great place to start, especially since I had already lived there for over 15 years.

Playa is a great town, but oddly isolated from the rest of Los Angeles. We are blocked off by the airport to the south, the marina to the north, and the ocean to the west. Very few Angelinos even knew Playa existed back then.

But what really struck me is that for a town of over 20,000, there were very few choices when it came to restaurants. I can recall many nights of coming home from work, only to curse myself for not stopping to get dinner first as my choices within Playa were so slim. I ate a lot of pizza. Of course a lot has changed now with the arrival of Silicon Beach and all the attention it has brought to the area, but at the time no one else was really thinking of Playa as a rgood place to start a business.

I began looking for appropriate spaces, before finding a liquor store that was up for sale. It was in rough shape, but I immediately saw it and thought: Market/Deli. Long story short, I couldn’t come to an agreement with those landlords and that deal fell through, but the idea of a deli and sandwich shop stayed in my mind. Two weeks later I leased an old flower shop located at a major intersection in upper Playa Del Rey. There is a whole story about dealing with the city bureaucracy, and all the obstacles I faced, but I won’t bore you with all that. Within a year, Del Rey Deli was born.

I had been doing a lot of research at the time, and ran into my Chef, Vince Howard at the local Elk’s Lodge. We started talking concepts and it just clicked. We both loved the sandwich concept, but agreed that we didn’t want to settle for a cheap, uninspired deli. We pushed for what we wanted: fresh bread, fresh vegetables, quality meats, and the will to make as much as we could in house. We have been doing that ever since.

My wife, Corrina and I run the shop and all the front of house operations, while Chef Vince keeps our kitchen running and our menu awesome. I could do nothing without those two people on my team. We have found the community of Playa to be very welcoming and friendly, and look forward to a long relationship here.
We are now going into our 5th year and have just finished a major expansion, giving us a brand new prep kitchen and hood system, allowing us to serve breakfast 7 days a week now and expand our catering.

What have been the biggest challenges you’ve faced over the years?
It’s never easy, and I don’t think anyone would tell you otherwise. I count myself lucky to have had the resources to get an education first, as it helped a lot.

Nothing you can learn can prepare you for a 2am sewer pipe back up, or how to handle a cooler breakdown in the middle of service. You learn how to ride those waves when they hit, or the stress can just swamp you.

Dealing with City bureaucracy has probably been the hardest part, because it’s incredibly difficult to get a correct answer from them, which is tough when your livelihood depends on it. With my new prep kitchen, the City initially told me the idea was great and I should fly through plan check without issue. I leased the space, got my plans together and submitted for approval only to have the City inform me that they considered my space to be beach adjacent and I would have to apply for a Coastal Development Permit in order to proceed.

If you don’t know what that entails, after stopping all other work on my project, here is what I had to do:

1. Spend three months filling out paperwork
2. Pay the Coastal Commission $10,000
3. Wait 6-8 months to get a hearing
4. Spend another $1000 sending out mailers to everyone within 1000 feet of my shop to inform them of my plans
5. Go to the hearing where I was the only person there, get approved…sort of
6. Wait another 2-3 months for the Commission to deliver my approval letter
7. Come back in 2 months to pay them another $2500 for code compliance

My whole project was set back a year for this. I tried to appeal my situation, but there was no one to appeal to. I tried to get around it, but there was no way around. To this day, I have no idea what I bought for all that time and money, and I cringe when I think of what happens to other business owners who face that and might not have the resources to get through it. In the end, it just takes time and money, but for a small business owner those things are not always abundant.

What stands out about Del Rey Deli Co.?
Our decor is somethings I’d like to call “Rustic Beach Sandwich Shop.” I told my designers to build me a space that looked like we had been there for decades and I think they succeeded.

We offer a few really unique items like our now famous take on the classic New Orleans Muffaletta, which features ham, salami, mortadella, cappocolla & pepperoni with swiss, provolone and our fresh made house muffaletta spread made from giardinera and olives.

Chef Vince also created our Salmon BLT featuring our house cured lox, candied bacon and a smear of our house made caper mayo.

Being a deli, there are so many options of what we can make, but little room on our menu for all of them. Off menu we do a mean grilled cheese for the kids, and excellent regular BLT and a great Turkey Club.

Most Popular Items

The Don

Ham, Salami, Mortadella, Cappocolla, Prosciutto with your choice of bread, cheese and toppings
The Breakfast Burrito

Your choice of protein with eggs, cheese, potatoes and spinach served with salsa verde and sour cream

Our Slow Drip Pour Over of fresh ground Joshua Tree Coffee

Really great fresh roast from Joshua Tree Coffee Co. We are one of the few places in LA to carry it. they were listed as one of the 40 best coffee shops in the country!Parking Advice:
We only have about 13 spaces in our parking lot, but there is ample street parking on Manchester Ave and Pershing Dr