Druxy’s still smokin’ after 35 years

[attach]3512[/attach]It’s so much more than smoked meat on rye.

Celebrating 35 years in business this year, Toronto-based Druxy’s Famous Deli has survived and thrived because of its willingness to change up its concept and, in a way, challenge peoples’ ideas of what a delicatessen is.

The 1200 Eglinton Ave. East location at Don Mills Road is the hotbed for the experimental oomph that’s behind the company’s recent re-brand and Fresh Deli Revolution program, the latter of which allows customers to build their own sandwich or salad with fresh toppings.

Located in the same building as the company’s head office, the location is the ideal place to test new ideas, says vice-president of marketing Peter Druxerman, one of three Druxerman brothers who run the family business.

“That’s the fun of it,” Peter says, adding that people working in the nearby offices often come up to his office and tell him what works and what doesn’t.

The first of the Druxy’s delis to be renovated, the Don Mills location is also the blueprint for the new look that’s been rolled out to about 10 Druxy’s locations in the last couple years.

It was important to make that change, says Peter, as the brightly-coloured menu boards, counters and chairs were dated. Now the look is clean and timeless, he says, with beige and grey tiling, tables and chairs in addition to white LED menu boards.

“We’re trying to do something with fresh food and still have the deli,” says Peter of the company’s re-branding initiatives.

But it’s not as though the whole fresh food mantra is a new direction from the company.

[attach]3513[/attach]When Peter’s brother Bruce Druxerman, Druxy’s founder and president, opened the first deli concept in Toronto’s Royal Bank Plaza, the idea was always to prepare food fresh in front of the customer on made-to-order basis, Peter says.

“It was a novel concept,” he says. Only Harvey’s, he adds, was doing made-to-order assembling in front of customers at the time.

The fresh factor was evident in the early days, when brother Bruce developed a burger concept called Burger Express and a coffee shop called the Coffee Grinder, both in the Toronto Eaton Centre, Peter says. But the burger joint didn’t last long as it was just too hard to serve a burger fresh if it took 12 minutes to cook.

“If your timing was off you had to throw it out.”

They survived the recession of the 1980s by beefing up the quality of their ingredients while their competitors were advertising 69-cent burgers, he says.

“No one was talking about quality.”

They also experimented with different formats, opening locations in unexpected places like industrial parks and even hospitals.

You wouldn’t think it, but hospitals have been a huge boon for the company, according to Peter. When Druxy’s introduced the Heart and Stroke Health Check program in 2007, which means that certain food meets specific health criteria, they were the only food retailer in the meeting with the University Health Network to come on board at the time, he says.

“You need to be willing to look and change,” Peter says of the company’s longevity.

Even back in Winnipeg, where the Druxerman brothers grew up, their family owned a restaurant called The Fireplace in the late 1960s that was part of a summer swimming club. It could be said to be a precursor to the experimental pluck that Druxy’s has built its name on.

The Fireplace morphed into a coffee house with folk singers, then a disco, and then a steakhouse, Peter says.

“It became the ‘in spot.’ ”