Benjamin Zastrow
Ella’s Deli, which opened on East Washington Avenue in 1976, is expected to close for good this month.
The walls and ceiling of Ella’s Deli are once again frantic with activity, as animated figures crisscross the restaurant. The Beatles peek out the portholes of the Yellow Submarine as it travels over a couple drinking Cokes. Down below, a tall father wades through the action and holds his toddler up high for a view of a mechanical fisherman on the run from two giant bass.
The Lee and Chenault families made the Saturday journey here from Eau Claire and Milwaukee. Their long table is festooned with helium balloons. They chose Ella’s for 3-year-old Reyna Lee’s birthday party because, as one family member puts it, “This is the place.”
Ella’s on East Washington Avenue has always drawn crowds, but they’ve been especially large ever since the restaurant announced on Jan. 3 it will close on or near Jan. 21. Even in the frigid weather, customers have been clogging the entrance and peering through the fogged windows as if it were a life-sized snow globe.
Although the staff is on a full run, they are completely, calmly in control.
“If you want one year of prosperity, grow grain,” the Chinese proverb begins. “If you want 100 years of prosperity, grow people.” It hasn’t been a century but Ken Balkin and his wife, Judy, have grown a lot of prosperity — on both sides of the counter — during their 42 years running Ella’s Deli.
Last week, Ken Balkin and Ella’s co-manager Catie Tollefson chatted about their long run in Balkin’s cozy, cluttered office in the little house that adjoins the restaurant. In the calm away from the floor, Balkin quietly shares his gratitude for his customers and employees. “We’ve been a place that’s provided young people their first job,” he says. “But we’re also a place where people will go away and come back to work. Retired people. People looking for a fun job for extra money.”
In peak summer months Ella’s payroll has as many as 100 workers. “I’m really lucky because I get to interact with them all,” says Tollefson. Many of Ella’s staff are as familiar to patrons as the carousel out front. Tollefson has worked there 27 years but that seems like a lunch break when compared to co-manager Alan Orvis, who has been there for 40.
Tollefson says a few days ago Balkin put in a 17-hour day. Waving her off, Balkin says “Everyone is working so hard.” His work started shortly after graduation from UW-Madison in the early ‘70s. It took a year-and-a-half to gut the building and assemble the equipment for the deli, which opened in 1976. But the deli has always been a work in progress.
At least 90 percent of the handmade figures that fill the restaurant were also built and installed by Balkin, usually during the slow winter months. The clown rolling across the high wire was his first design.
Tollefson’s closing post on Facebook received a half million hits within the first 24 hours. “When I posted I was foolish enough to think I’d be able to answer all the comments,” she laughs.
“When people call us an icon and say we’ll be missed it’s so overwhelming,” Tollefson says. “We thank them for including us in so many important things in their lives.” She mentions the birthday parties, the retirements, the first dates, the engagement dinners over grilled pound cake sundaes.
And then, just last week: a first: “We had a baby gender reveal party,” Tollefson says. “I’d never heard of one of those!” Balkin chimes in. In keeping with a plan the party had made with staff, the waitress served the gathering blue moon ice cream for the reveal.
Until deciding to retire, Balkin says he never had a single night when he wished he were out of the business. “I want it to live on,” he says. “It hurts.” He says that there are parties interested in buying the restaurant, but nothing firm.
Meanwhile his staff will continue to serve the crowds steaming hot bowls of matzo ball soup, omelettes, sandwiches and ice cream sundaes. Balkin sighs as he considers how hard his crew is working to meet the demands. He looks down at his black pants spotted with flour. “I couldn’t ask any more of them.”
Year Ella’s Parker carousel was built: 1927
Year the carousel was put to work at Ella’s: “late ‘80s”
Original cost per ride on carousel: 75 cents
What owner Ken Balkin says will be his last meal at Ella’s: Pastrami and swiss sandwich/Grilled pound cake sundae
