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Zingerman’s Delicatessen opened on March 15, 1982, at the corner of Detroit and Kingsley streets in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with two people on the payroll. It has since become the anchor of a group of food businesses and one of the most widely written-about delis in the country. The sandwich most often attached to its name is the #2 Reuben, one of eight Reubens on a menu where sandwiches carry numbers.

Video: “You can’t get this anywhere else:” Zingerman’s Reuben is one-of-a-kind Ann Arbor sandwich | MLive

Where it is and how it started

The deli’s official site lists its address as 422 Detroit St., Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104, with the phone number 734-663-3354. The company’s own account places it “at the intersection of Detroit and Kingsley streets”, across from the Farmers Market. Its main page lists sandwich service daily from 11am to 7pm, and it describes a Next Door Café open from 7am. Hours change, so the site is the place to confirm them.

The brick building was put up in 1902 as a grocery, and the Zingerman’s timeline names it Disderide’s Grocery. The company says the building is on the historic register. The deli opened in March 1982, about four and a half months after Paul Saginaw told Ari Weinzweig the space was available, in roughly 1,300 square feet. According to the deli’s history page, the team had “just two employees on the payroll”.

Love Food describes the original shop as having five tables and a small range of food: sandwiches, chopped liver, chicken soup, cheeses, smoked fish and bread. The same article says there is often a wait for a sandwich, which does not seem to deter customers.

A two-story orange brick corner building with large windows and awnings in afternoon light.

Two founders, one name

Paul Saginaw and Ari Weinzweig both graduated from the University of Michigan, Saginaw in 1976 and Weinzweig in 1978, and the University of Michigan alumni magazine notes both as co-founders of Zingerman’s Community of Businesses. The University of Michigan’s Bentley Library says the two met while working at Maude’s restaurant, where Weinzweig started as a dishwasher, became interested in food and worked up to line cook. A WKAR interview with author Micheline Maynard says the founders wanted to recreate the Jewish-style sandwiches and deli sides of their youth.

The sources differ on how the first deli was financed. The alumni magazine says the partners borrowed $20,000 from a bank and $2,000 from Weinzweig’s grandmother. The WKAR piece mentions funding from Weinzweig’s grandmother and a second mortgage on Saginaw’s house, and does not give the bank loan figure. They agree on the grandmother and the two-person start.

The name has its own story. The WKAR interview describes a planned name, Greenberg’s Delicatessen, that fell through because someone in Lansing already held the rights to it, and Love Food says another business with that name objected. The Bentley account says the founders wanted something that would “sound Jewish”, and that neither founder’s surname worked: Weinzweig was unpronounceable, and Saginaw did not suggest a Michigan deli. Love Food adds that the Z would be easy to find in the phone book. WKAR reports that there was never an actual Mr. Zingerman.

The building grows

The first major change came in 1986, when the timeline records a 700-square-foot addition housing the sandwich line and more dry-goods space. In 1991, the company says, it renovated the neighboring house into Zingerman’s Next Door, adding about 60 seats; Love Food dates the coffee shop to 1992, a one-year gap between the two accounts. The deli’s own page puts the main building’s selling space at roughly 1,000 square feet.

In 2010 the deli received approval from the Ann Arbor Historic District Commission to begin an expansion project, and the timeline gives no completion date. The same timeline traces what grew around the deli: the Bakehouse’s first loaves in October 1992, a first mail-order catalog in 1993, Zingermans.com online in 1999, the Creamery in 2001 and the Roadhouse in 2003.

The numbered menu and the eight Reubens

The deli’s own description of its sandwiches is that they are piled high enough to need two hands, and its buying operation covers more than 5,000 ingredients. Its main page says it makes thousands of made-to-order sandwiches with Black Angus corned beef and pastrami, free-range chicken, turkey, housemade chopped liver and chicken salad. Sandwiches on the menu carry numbers, and several are named for people. The deli’s story page lists #5, Rodger’s Big Picnic, named for managing partner Rodger Bowser, and #97, Lisa C.’s Boisterous Brisket, which it says Oprah Winfrey rated an “11” on a scale of one to five.

The deli’s top-ten list begins with the #2 Zingerman’s Reuben, followed by #48 Binny’s Brooklyn Reuben, #81.5 Rick’s 50/50 Mix of corned beef and pastrami, and #18 Georgia Reuben. Its Top 10 Sandwiches page also includes #73 Tarb’s Tenacious Tenure, #74 Dave’s Open Road, #84 Benno’s Birdie, #13 Sherman’s Sure Choice, #00 D-$’s Cuban Conundrum and #55 Gemini Rocks The House.

A deli display case holding sliced corned beef, pastrami, chopped liver and wheels of cheese.

Inside the #2 Reuben

An October 2024 post, “Meet the Reubens,” says the #2 is the original and most popular, with about 50,000 made a year: corned beef, Swiss, sauerkraut and Russian dressing on grilled rye. The other seven vary the meat, the cabbage or the bread. The #13 is the only ungrilled one, made with coleslaw. The #48 swaps in pastrami on pumpernickel, and the #123 TNT Cowboy Reuben uses beef brisket in house barbecue sauce with provolone and coleslaw on a Paesano roll. Two vegetarian versions, the #236 and the #36, round out the list.

The same post accounts for the ingredients. The corned beef was developed with Sy Ginsburg about three decades ago and is made by United Meat and Deli, which Ginsburg opened in Detroit in 1982. The rye comes from Zingerman’s Bakehouse, which opened in 1992, and the post says the Jewish Rye is made with a high percentage of rye flour. The sauerkraut is from The Brinery in Ann Arbor, made through lacto-fermentation, and the dressing is Zingerman’s own Russian. The Swiss is usually LeSuperbe Swiss Emmental from the Emme River Valley in Switzerland. Love Food, summarizing the Reuben as the deli’s signature, reports that the Reubens are regularly named among the best in the US, though it does not name a specific award.

The businesses that grew around the deli

The Zingerman’s timeline lists the later additions with dates. The Bakehouse baked its first loaves in October 1992 and added sweet goods in 1994. The Zzang! candy bar followed in 2005, and BAKE!, a hands-on teaching bakery, opened in 2006. ZingTrain, which runs business seminars, was founded in 1994, catering launched in 1996, and the Coffee Company opened in 2003. The Candy Manufactory opened in 2009, and Cornman Farms joined in 2014. Zingerman’s Mail Order and zingermans.com merged into one business in 2002.

The company’s own overview describes these as a family of businesses sharing an emphasis on education, flavor, tradition and the integrity of ingredients. It also quotes the founders’ stated aim: “We never wanted to be one of the biggest, only one of the best.” The deli’s story page says it has added local, small-farm produce to its menu over the years.

A sliced loaf of rye bread beside a jar of sauerkraut and a bowl of Russian dressing on a wooden table.

Press, a presidential lunch and a community of businesses

On April 2, 2014, President Barack Obama stopped at the deli before a speech on the federal minimum wage. Michigan Public reports that he ordered a Reuben and that Representative Gary Peters ordered the same. In his remarks, the president said “Zingerman’s is a business that treats its workers well” and rewards honest work with honest wages. The Zingerman’s community site, in its own account, describes the sandwich as a classic #2 Reuben with a garlic pickle and a side of spinach salad, while the Michigan Public report says he chose the newer, crunchier pickle. The two accounts differ on which pickle appeared.

The alumni magazine reports that Obama called the Reuben “killer” during the visit and that University of Michigan president Mark Schlissel names the corned beef Reuben as his favorite sandwich. It adds that Inc. magazine named the company the “Coolest Small Company in America” and that a 2014 study by the Ann Arbor Area Convention and Visitors Bureau ranked the Zingerman’s name third among the things Ann Arbor is best known for. It gave the Community of Businesses 22 partners, 750 employees and projected revenue of $55 million. By 2022, the WKAR interview describes the company as a $70-million business with more than a dozen satellite companies, and says Zingerman’s makes its own corned beef and bread.

Maynard’s book on the company, Satisfaction Guaranteed: How Zingerman’s Built A Corner Deli Into a Global Food Community, is the subject of that interview. WKAR also reports that carryout and delivery were only about 8 percent of deli business before the pandemic, and that more than 80 percent of deli orders are now placed in advance. The company’s overview describes the deli as a “living culinary laboratory” as the place where customers can try traditional foods.

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