When a small sign went up on the door of Nellie’s Deli on Tenth and Bloomfield streets announcing that the small, old-fashioned grocery would be closing for good, many people thought the worst.
For 40 years, Nellie Lenz, a spunky, bespectacled woman who has lived in Hoboken her whole life, manned the counter at the deli with a nearly religious devotion. Many thought that the closing of the deli could only mean that Lenz had, at the age of 83, passed on, since the two entities – owner and grocery – were so inseparable that it was impossible to imagine one without the other.
“We just assumed the worst,” said one neighbor who frequents the store.
But Lenz is alive, although she is suffering from an illness doctors have had trouble diagnosing. Her illness, which at times leaves her too weak to get out of bed, is forcing her to close the store, she says.
“I’ve had 50 doctors and 50 tests and they still know nothing,” said Lenz in the sort of deadpan voice that has entertained friends and visitors for years.
Though friends and neighbors said last week that they were saddened at the thought of losing the deli, any sense of loss seemed to be overshadowed by their joy when they heard that Lenz was actually alive.
“One of my girlfriends, who I have known 30 years – since she was 12 – said ‘Oh my god, I’m so happy you are alive,'” Lenz said last week. “She just kept saying, ‘Nellie? Nellie is it you? Is it really you?'”
The outpouring of emotion says a lot about the nature of the small 20- by 30-foot store that is neatly stocked with stacks of nonperishable items like Tide and Campbell’s soup.
It was a community store where shoppers seemed to care as much about the grocer as they did about the quality of its goods. “People used to come in just to talk,” said Lenz, who used to let neighbors purchase goods on credit. “I loved the people. Greeting them everyday, every morning.”
The store looked so much like it was out of the beginning of the 20th century that Tina Sinatra used it as a set when filming a television mini-series about her father.
“Its funny,” said Julie Hartigan, a three-year customer of the store. “[The deli] almost looks like it is done up to look that old, but it actually is that old. You go in there and they have got just one box of corn flakes and maybe some sugar. It’s the kind of place that has only 10 things, but you go in there all the time.”
Even though Lenz says that she is closing the store because her illness has left her too weak to keep it open, she did say that it would have been difficult to keep it open anyway, since most people in the neighborhood were interested in visiting a more upscale grocery.
“It’s a younger crowd now, and they tend to go for more gourmet stuff,” she said. “Business has not been as good.”
If she and her husband, Kenneth, did not own the building, there is no way they could have made it work, she said.
“Some weeks I only came out with $100 or $200 over the last couple of years,” she said. “But it was just my time, not like rent, or anything, so it didn’t matter.”
The Lenzes don’t seem to make major life changes on a whim. Lenz has lived in the building that the deli is housed in since she was five years old. Her father purchased it at that time, and opened up a shoe repair shop in a storefront that abuts the deli. The family was housed on the upper floors.
The deli was leased to Ralph Terminello, who ran it as a fruit and vegetable stand for nearly 40 years. After the lease changed hands a few times, Lenz decided in 1960 to open Nellie’s. Over the years she slowly expanded hours, opening on Sundays when she realized that people liked to get something to eat after they went to church.
Now that Nellie’s is closing, some locals worried about what may open in its place.
“They will probably put some Yuppie massage place there,” said Margaret O’Brien, a crossing guard who works at 11th and Washington streets. “It’s too bad, because that was a great place.”
In the near term, at least, the Lenzes say they have no plans to do much of anything with the store. “We’ll probably just eat the soup and drink the soda,” said Nellie. “I’ve had a lot of years wrapped into this. Its going to take some adjusting to not having it.”