Shapiro's Delicatessen

Overpriced.

From the outside of the red brick Downtown location, it doesn't look like a Jewish delicatessen but go inside to this cafeteria-style layout, get a gander at the many tempting foods at the glass-enclosed counter displays and you know immediately that you're in for the real deal.

I like my sandwiches either with rye bread or on onion rolls but the day I visited, it was pastrami on rye with mustard with a Dr. Brown's Cream Soda and it was just a perfect combination. Pastrami that's too lean is dry and lacks flavor, whereas too much fat makes the sandwich oily and Shapiro's pastrami strikes the perfect balance of meat-to-fat ratio.

While Shapiro's does have a wide variety of dessert choices, who has room after one of their sandwiches? The corned beef also looked really good but that will have to wait for another trip. The menu prices were quite reasonable for both the quality and quantity of food, which would be several dollars more in places like NYC or L.A. delicatessen and since it looks like many Jewish delicatessens around the country are closing after many years in business, it becomes harder to find one to dine in. I would wholeheartedly return here.

I love Shapiro's so much that I lost my mind for a few hours a couple years ago and took a New Yorker from the Bronx of the Jewish faith there for lunch. Then I panicked. This guys was raised on deli food, what am I thinking taking him to a Jewish deli in Indianapolis for Pete's sake?!! As we ordered our food, and he judged the situation, I was sweating, thinking, maybe it's just me, maybe I'm just so removed from New York these days (I'm originally from the state) that anything tastes better than nothing?  

We sat down to eat and he took a bite of his pastrami on rye. As we chewed in silence, he begins to tell me this story about being a young boy and riding his bike down to the local delicatessen on Sundays for his mother with his brother, and they would buy 3 loaves of rye bread for the week. He tells me how this bread was THE BEST bread ever, and he's never had bread taste so good ever since............until that day he sat eating the rye from Shapiro's. You can imagine my relief. And the elation I felt when he told me he would like nothing better than to take 2 loaves home with him on the plane. I mean, when your food can taste as good, if not better, than a childhood memory, you're doing something right.

Go here, eat the food, love life for a while. Totally worth the money it costs.