Nothing Fancy, Just Nostalgic: Schneider Deli Opens a Flagship Jewish Deli Location in Lincoln Park

Get more recipes, food news, and stories at wttw.com/food or by signing up for our Deep Dish newsletter. 
Have a food story or recommendation? Email us at [email protected].

Family photos line the walls of the new location of Schneider Deli at 1733 N. Halsted St. in Lincoln Park, and on a recent morning, family in the flesh filled the space. Friends and relatives of Jake and Ariel Schneider, some in Chicago just for this, had gathered to dedicate the space and affix a mezuzah to the lintel of the restaurant’s door, per Jewish tradition. A young girl situated in an olive-green banquette sang along to songs emanating from a phone while a boy wandered over the pink and white floor tiles in a Schneider Deli T-shirt and the grown-ups conversed over coffee, bagels, lox, and sweets.

“This is a deli, but it’s also more than that,” Jake said after Ariel read a prayer in Hebrew: a third place; an achievement to be proud of; a gathering spot for friends and family, as it was that day, even while workers in high-visibility neon shirts moved amongst half-unpacked boxes, tools, and dustcloths in the back. 

Jake’s mom chimed in from the crowd to share how proud she was of her son and daughter-in-law. “Thanks, Mom…” he responded with the fond exasperation familiar to every child embarrassed by a parent. 

This second location of Schneider Deli opens April 1. Like the first, a tight space in the Ohio House Motel at 600 N. La Salle Drive in River North, it is an homage to the Schneiders’ families and the food traditions that brought them together. (It was even designed by family: Jake’s aunt and uncle did the interior.) There are the pickles that the Schneiders first began selling as the pop-up Schneider Provisions several years ago, as well as the house-made corned beef and gravlax (cured salmon) they sold on Instagram. There’s latkes, matzo ball soup, and brisket, like Jake’s grandma Eunice would serve at every holiday – even if the latter is spiced up by some good ole’ Chicago giardiniera, courtesy Caruso’s Provisions. Other modernizations of Jewish deli traditions come in the form of a burger with ground corned beef for a patty and vegetarian sandwiches with latkes heartening up eggplant and tahini or mushroom, swiss, and onion. 

“Going to my grandma’s house for holidays, like Rosh Hashanah or Passover or anything,” Jake says, “those were some of my best memories. My grandparents were so focused on having the family together.” 

Growing up in the suburbs, he would get bagels from Once Upon a Bagel in Highland Park, which now supplies the bagels for Schneider’s Deli and their breakfast and fish sandwiches. Ariel is from New Jersey, where she would rush to the local Jewish deli anytime she came home from college. “It’s not even anything fancy,” she says. “It’s just nostalgic.”

That’s the sort of place the married couple is trying to create with Schneider Deli. “I always knew his deli was the destiny,” Ariel says of Jake.

They met while both were working at RPM Italian, Jake in pasta production and Ariel as a hostess. Jake had always been interested in the food industry and went to school for economics, thinking it might help him start a business. “By the end of it, I was so into cooking that I almost dropped out and went to culinary school,” he says.

He got the economics degree, however, then found work at restaurants throughout Chicago before transferring to a meal kit company while Ariel trained to be a court stenographer. (She maintains that job while also helping out at Schneider Deli.)  

Knowing that Jake wanted to eventually open his own restaurant, Ariel pushed him to start laying the groundwork. He sold pickles, corned beef, and more as Schneider Provisions, then opened a brick-and-mortar location in the cozy diner of the Ohio House Motel in the summer of 2023.

“We wanted something central” to “catch a lot of eyes,” Jake says. 

“We wanted a small space, too, just to see how it was going to work,” Ariel adds. 

“Figure out the kinks,” Jake continues. The Lincoln Park space is “the true evolution,” he says.

“This is the full concept of what we imagined,” Ariel explains, the destiny deli they’ve been working towards all along. 

Unlike the River North location, it will offer espresso drinks with beans from Chicago’s Metropolis Coffee, and will be open into the evening with sandwiches, sides, to-go meals for commuters on their way home, and wine, draft beer, and canned cocktails. 

“I’m hoping people can sit longer,” Ariel says; as Jake said during the dedication of the restaurant, they want it to be a welcoming third space, just like the Jewish delis they grew up with.

A wave of modern versions of those has long been on the verge of cresting before dashing itself against COVID, inflation, rising rents, and more. Neither Humboldt Park’s Jeff and Jude’s nor Uptown’s vegan Sam and Gertie’s lasted. But a bagel boom underway in Chicago bodes well for the trend, even just in Lincoln Park itself, where Dorothy’s Bakery recently opened not far from Schneider Deli and Zeitlin’s Delicatessen – with which the Schneiders once hosted a Hanukkah party pop-up – just unveiled its own brick and mortar location.

"We're more than a bagel place, we're a deli," says Jake. "But it's really good to see the food become more mainstream and see everyone so interested in it."

“It’s not just a random restaurant owned by a big restaurant group that just popped up a Jewish deli concept. It’s very personal to us.” Ariel says of Schneider Deli. “I love when people come into River North and they’re like, ‘I thought you guys were here forever.’”

Maybe some day it will have been there for decades, and those kids who were present at its dedication and for many sandwiches and egg creams to come will have their own memories of their aunt and uncle’s deli, their own nostalgic craving for it.