At Manny’s Deli, the Staff are the Beating Heart of a Multi-Generational Chicago Institution

Kathleen Hinkel

November 5, 2024

A customer ordering food at a counter with servers behind, featuring a sign for "Manny's."

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Manny’s Cafeteria & Delicatessen is a beloved Chicago institution, serving massive corned beef and pastrami sandwiches alongside pickles, thick potato pancakes, and golden matzo ball soup for nine decades. Politicians both local and national are known to stop by, but it’s more important as a meeting place for everyday Chicagoans of all stripes. It’s still a family business, run now by the fourth generation, and that respect for longevity carries through to the staff, who are the heartbeat of the place. Many of them have been working there for decades – as long as some customers have been eating there.

Photographer Kathleen Hinkel spent a day in October at the reputable deli, observing how the staff continue to make it run some 82 years on.

Wayne Gordon gets to Manny’s Cafeteria & Delicatessen around 6:00 am to work. He’s not an employee, but he is there with his own work before the venerable restaurant opens at 8:00 am – and the staff welcomes him. Formerly a coach at Farragut Career Academy in South Lawndale and now a pastor at the nearby Lawndale Community Church, he has been coming to Manny’s for some 40 years to get work done over a cup of coffee there in the early morning hours.

A man sits at a table in a diner, focused on reading, with retro decor in the background.

The deli used to open to the public at 5:00 am; when fourth-generation owner Dan Raskin took over in the past few years, he pushed the opening later but told Gordon he could maintain his dawn hours there. Now Gordon sets to his papers with a highlighter at one of Manny’s formica tables while deli employees like Jui Guzman go about their work before the doors officially open and more customers arrive.

A restaurant setting with two men, one stacking chairs and another seated, dim lighting.

Guzman takes chairs off the tables and places them on the white-and-black tiled floor. He wipes each table down before setting squeeze bottles of yellow and signature horseradish mustard on them, ready to garnish the heaps of corned beef and pastrami that will soon be scarfed down there.

A restaurant worker cleans a table in a sunlit dining area with empty chairs.

Guzman is 70 years old and has been working at Manny’s for 21 years. But his long tenure doesn’t even bring him close to that of Gino Gambarota or Ozzie Lopez.

Busy deli counter with two workers in white uniforms, one smiling and pointing while the other prepares food.

The 64-year-old Lopez is the longest-standing employee at Manny’s, the only one who has worked for the deli’s namesake, Manny Raskin; his son, Ken; and Ken’s son, Dan.

Smiling chef behind the deli counter, standing near food trays.

Gambarota, who works the corned beef station that is the heart of Manny’s, has been at the restaurant since 1983. Now 74, he was the first person Ken Raskin hired after the death of Manny.

Smiling chef holding a meat fork in a busy deli with menu displayed in the background.

“A lot of why we’ve succeeded is the staff,” says Dan Raskin. “We’re family-owned; customers keep coming back – keeping people on staff for a long time is important to us.”

Busy deli interior with chefs preparing food and customers at the counter.

Dan is 41 years old, which means he was an infant when his grandfather Manny died at 53 and when Ken hired Gambarota. Pastor Gordon has been coming to Manny’s about as long as Dan has been alive.

A man in a button-up shirt stands smiling in a casual restaurant setting.

Dan is currently half the age of Manny’s, which traces its roots back to a spot opened in 1942 by two Jewish brothers from Russia. In 1964, Jack Raskin split from his brother Charlie to buy a diner at the current location of 1141 S. Jefferson Street and named it Manny’s, after his son Emmanuel.

A person strolls towards Manny's Restaurant at sunrise, casting warm light.

Manny Raskin took over, then was followed by his own son Ken and Ken's wife Patti. Dan worked alongside his parents for years before taking over around the time of the pandemic.

Manny's Restaurant sign with skyscrapers in the background against a blue sky.

At a long-running place like Manny’s, it’s not just the owners who are multi-generational. “Manny’s is an institution for our family,” says Pastor Gordon, who sometimes dines there with his son. “Just having conversations about life,” he says. “To have an adult son that wants to be with his father…”

Four older adults enjoying a meal at a diner, smiling and chatting at a table.

He also uses the restaurant for business meetings – and he’s not the only one. Manny’s has long been a meeting place for politicians and their advisors, including David Axelrod, the chief strategist for Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns, and Obama himself.

A busy diner with staff serving food, and customers waiting at the counter.

“Once he started political advising, he was so comfortable here that he would have all his potential clients or current clients meet him at Manny’s,” Ken Raskin told WTTW News about Axelrod in 2017. There’s now a table at Manny’s marked by a plaque in honor of Axelrod.

Plaque displaying "DAVID AXELROD'S TABLE" on a wooden background.

Both Mayor Daleys ate at Manny’s, and mayoral candidates have made a tradition of stopping there on election day. Even national politicians like Bill Clinton and John Edwards have dropped in. Gambarota says he’s met “a lot of people over the years” at Manny’s. “It’s a generational thing, a beautiful thing.”

Smiling chef in a diner serving food at the counter, vibrant atmosphere and colorful dishes.

“It’s a unifying space,” says Pastor Gordon. “Manny’s is a place where everyone is welcome. You can have conversations with people you disagree with.”

A group of people waiting in line and telling their orders at the deli counter.

Or agree with – on a recent Wednesday, it was full of old friends meeting up, like regulars Jerry Chaplick and Marvin Herman, who have been visiting for decades.

An elderly man holds a tray of food, smiling, while another man stands behind him.

“It’s a great place to have conversations, where you’re not rushed,” say Norm Kerr and John Thomas.

Two older men sitting at a cafe table, engaging in conversation.

Indeed, the massive sandwiches overflowing with curls of thin-sliced meat encourage you to take your time.

A plate with a sandwich, pickles, a side of fried food, and blue cups on a tray.

Corned beef is the most famous filling, sheared into rosy heaps by Gambarota and dumped on meager slices of rye bread.

A butcher in a white apron and hat slices meat at a deli, surrounded by equipment and food.

There’s also pastrami, turkey, and turkey pastrami – or all three plus corned beef on the massive My Four Kinder.

Plate of sliced pastrami with bread and a bowl of matzo ball soup on a tray.

Other Jewish deli staples remain, like chopped liver, massive potato pancakes, and matzo ball soup. On a busy day, the deli goes through up to 300 tennis ball-sized matzo balls.

Three pots boiling matzo balls on a stove top, surrounded by steam and metal surfaces.

A newer deli next door offers plates of smoked salmon and vegetables alongside ice cream and baked goods.

A display case filled with various pastries and desserts, showcasing a colorful assortment.

Manny’s now ships its corned beef nationwide, and you can buy a mix for its potato pancakes. But change has been kept to a minimum over the decades. While once-popular quick-service lunchrooms and cafeterias like Manny’s have mostly disappeared from Chicago (Hyde Park’s Valois, another Obama favorite, is an exception), Manny’s continues the tradition of standing in line at a deli counter, sliding a plastic tray along with you as you order and grab your food.

A plate with stacked corned beef, sliced bread, and a pickle, on a cafeteria tray.

It continues to serve customers in almost the same way it has for decades, day after day after day, thanks to the work of longtime devoted staff members – including the ones you barely see as a customer, like Juan Corona, who has worked there for 12 years.

A restaurant worker in a white uniform cleans a countertop with a red bucket nearby.

Or Elias Gonzalez, who works in the kitchen prepping food behind the scenes, and is there to close up at night after all the customers have finished their conversations and their mounded sandwiches and gone.