The Stage was set and more than ready to welcome its first diners in nearly three months Monday morning as proprietor Steven Goldberg paused to reflect before opening the doors.
“It’s kinda cool that we’re reopening today,” said Goldberg, the second-generation steward of the nearly 60-year-old Jewish dining institution. “It’s my father’s birthday.”
Steven’s parents, Jack and Harriet Goldberg, opened the Stage Deli in Oak Park in 1962 and moved it to West Bloomfield 20 years later, following the dominant migration pattern of the local Jewish population. A lawyer by training, Steven moved back home in the mid-'90s to run the place after his father fell ill. Now, his kids run it with him.
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Over the years, the Stage has seen its fair share of ups and downs, including a devastating hepatitis A outbreak in the late-'90s that cratered the business for a while, but it’s always found a way to claw its way back into the hearts, minds and bellies of its beloved regulars.
“I’m feeling pretty good,” Goldberg said about reopening the dining room after three months of curbside carryout and delivery, all that restaurants have been allowed to provide since Gov. Gretchen Whitmer shut down dining rooms across the state to help contain the spread of COVID-19 on March 16.
But it’s the words and lessons his father instilled in him as a young boy learning the ropes of deli life that Steven kept coming back to on this auspicious occasion, which would’ve been Jack Goldberg’s 99th birthday.
“My father taught me a very valuable lesson many, many years ago that the show must go on,” Goldberg said. “I was 8 years old. There was a crippling snowstorm in the state that buried our cars in the driveway and there was no school. My father grabbed me and we hitchhiked 10 miles to get to the restaurant in Oak Park and opened the restaurant. I think we had maybe four customers that day. But the show goes on. That’s why we’re here today.”
Goldberg and other restaurateurs across the state had a week to get their doors open with the new state-mandated guidelines in place and he said he felt ready.
The Stage is the kind of restaurant that was by its nature more ready to bounce back from the stay-at-home order. It’s been around forever — a trusted name in the community. And the day the shutdown started, Goldberg immediately pivoted to curbside carryout and delivery, tripling the volume of the carryout business since. That means the supply chain, the bills and most of the staff have all been taken care of throughout, even though the number of employees is down about 25% from pre-COVID levels.
But Goldberg remained proactive throughout, staying on top of the guidelines and looking to what other states and restaurants Up North who got the chance to open earlier have been doing.
To that end, this boomer of a restaurant has embraced technology. There’s a new waitlist app that people can make a reservation on, and be alerted when their table is ready. For carryout, there’s a new online ordering system. When dining in, customers are prompted to scan a QR code printed on a tablecard that sends them to the online menu, also available as a single-use paper menu or the old-school vinyl menu that’s sanitized between uses — a different menu for different comfort levels. At the end of the meal, you can pay with a touchless credit card reader that comes to the table.
“More important than anything is to keep everyone as safe as possible,” Goldberg said. “I work here. My kids work here. People who’ve been with us for 25, 30 years work here. We don’t want anyone to get sick, but we still need to operate a business so that my staff and myself can put food on our tables.”
Moments after the Stage opened its doors at 10 a.m. Monday, guests started to slowly trickle in.
“I’m so excited to eat inside a restaurant!” exclaimed Ilene Bischer of Macomb Township as she walked in with a friend. “We’re just excited to get back to normal. I think it’s great!”
As Bischer and her date were seated, Goldberg cracked a joke at the other end of the dining room: “OK! Dining room is full now!”
Unlike a lot of the smaller Jewish delis that dot Oakland County, the Stage has a large, upscale dining room, complete with plush chairs and a Hollywood theme. Before COVID hit, it sat 180 people inside with another 40 out on the patio. Those numbers have now been halved, as mandated by the 50% maximum occupancy rule.
For a place accustomed to doing 700 covers between a busy lunch and dinner services, Goldberg said managing the flow of customers into the restaurant was going to be the biggest challenge. Waiting areas are not allowed under the new rules, so the restaurant placed its host stand outside. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the small patio was the first to fill up.
Kelly Sessel of West Bloomfield was enjoying a glass of white wine on the patio with Ariel Fink of Waterford.
“I’m just a little more comfortable outside,” Sessel said. “I’ll probably keep to staying outside for the first couple weeks. I’ve had friends over and we stick with outside.”
Asked what would make her comfortable enough to eat inside, she said the number of cases would have to continue to decrease.
“If there’s a spike, forget it,” she said.
Back inside, server Lea Fernandez of West Bloomfield said she felt ready to open. Even with the dining room shut, she’d remained on staff throughout the stay-at-home order and assisted with curbside carryout and delivery. She said she never felt uncomfortable throughout.
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“I think this community has been really self-aware,” she said. “Everyone’s been following the high standards of safety. I feel really fortunate to be in a community as tight-knit, generous and supportive of the business. And that says a lot about the integrity of the business itself.”
From behind her face mask, Fernandez said the social distancing aspect is the hardest for her. (She’s a hugger.)
“Just not being able to have that personal touch is the biggest challenge,” she said. “I feel like this has taken away a sense of our humanity. But it’s something we’ll recover. It’ll just take time.”
It seemed to be taking no time at all, as more customers started to stream in for lunch and the jokes and laughter started to fill the mostly empty room. Meanwhile, plenty of folks still opted to pick up their food from the safety of their car outside.
Now it's a game of wait-and-see and hope the numbers continue to trend in the right direction. The day before, Michigan reported its lowest number of new COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic.
But that doesn’t mean it’s over, and Goldberg knows it.
“The day before the shutdown, I had my son paint a huge sign that said ‘Open for carryout,’ ” he said. “It was this big sign and it filled the front windows. We took that sign down very carefully, rolled it up very carefully and it’s now in my basement should we need it again.”
Stage Deli: 6873 Orchard Lake, West Bloomfield; 248-855-6622 and thestagedeli.com.
Send your dining tips to Free Press Restaurant Critic Mark Kurlyandchik at 313-222-5026 or mkurlyandc@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @MKurlyandchik and Instagram @curlyhandshake. Read more restaurant news and reviews and sign up for our Food and Dining newsletter.
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