After 30 years, Daffy Deli bids farewell to Newark community

Dimitra Pappoulis stood at the register at Daffy Deli  Aug. 20, taking orders and ringing them up. Before going back to the kitchen to prepare the customers' food, she picked up a camera behind the register and said, "Wait! Say macaronia! [macaroni in Greek] I'm taking pictures of everyone to put in a book for memories."

The deli closed its doors the next day.

With her family hanging out at one table and customers eating lunch at others, Dimitra floated from table to table offering them samples of hot rice pudding freshly out of the oven. 

"Eat it while it's hot," she said. "It's the last batch I'll ever make!"

Friendly service is not unusual for Dimitra, who ran the family-owned business since 1980 with her late husband, Taso. After his passing in 2005, she continued to keep it open with the help of her daughters, Zaharo and Georgia.

The deli was mainly known for Greek cuisine and cheese steaks, but its selection of specialty subs was also very popular. These subs were college-comfort food topped creations invented by students over the years like chicken fingers, cheese fries, mozzarella sticks, hot sauce and bacon.

Zaharo grew up in the deli. She and her sister helped out in the store since they were legally old enough to work. She saidmaking the decision to close the deli was not one to which her family came lightly.

"For my sister and I, it has been strictly the deli for the past five years, but we've got kids now that we need to raise," Zaharo said. "My mom can't do it anymore with everything that's happened and everything that's going on, and with the hours we'd have to work here we wouldn't be doing it for our kids. We want to focus on them in these years."

Zaharo said it's not fair to say the economy is to blame, but summers in Newark were always hard on the deli.

"About 80 to 85 percent of our business is the university," she said. "When they're not in town, you really have to plan for summer."

However, Daffy Deli had many regular customers over the years as well. University graduate student Steve Fox, who also attended the university for his undergraduate studies, was a regular customer at the deli for the past six years. 

While standing in line waiting to order, Fox said it was love at first bite when friends first introduced him to the deli his freshman year.

"They have the best veggie burgers, period," he said. "I even came here to get veggie burgers when I wasn't a vegetarian. That's how good they are."

Fox said besides the veggie burgers he will miss how close the Pappoulis family is to the community through their business.

"They are honestly the nicest people in the world," he said. "There's something about when the owner of the store takes your order, cooks your food and brings it out to you. It adds a personal touch that you can't find just anywhere."

University alumnus  Mike Dorotheo said he was shocked to hear that the deli was closing its doors. He said his favorite specialty sub was The Bomb, which had hot sauce and chicken fingers on it.

"Once I got it like four times in one week," Dorotheo said. "I think my heart slowed down after that."

Dorotheo, who said he often orders food while at work, encouraged his fellow employees to do the same and order from the deli on its last day.

"Maybe seven of us ordered food from there," he said. "Most of us got specialty subs because they're so unique, but some ordered Greek food like gyros." Although Daffy Deli is no longer open and its account on Campusfood.com has vanished, Zaharo said her family will keep its phone number and e-mail address and Dimitra will continue to do catering from her home.

The property has already been sold, she said. The buyer plans to tear down the deli and build a structure with businesses on the first floor and apartments above it.

As for the future of the deli, Zaharo Pappoulis said there has been some discussion about whether her family will ever go back into the deli business.

"The buyer told us there will be space available in case we want to reopen, but we'll just have to wait and see," she said.

Whatever the future holds for the Pappoulis family and their food, university students and Newark residents will always have the memory of Daffy Deli and its thirty years of business. 

"We feel like we're such a big part of this community," Zaharo Pappoulis said. "Just as the trees!"