Famous 4th Street Deli is listed for sale. This time, it’s not baloney.
We asked owner Russ Cowan if Famous would close, if a deal failed to materialize. "No no no no no," he said.
Famous 4th Street Deli, believed to be the oldest Jewish-owned delicatessen in Philadelphia, is on the market.
Then again, it’s pretty much always been “on the market” since Russ Cowan bought the 90-year-old Queen Village landmark in 2005. “My standard answer is what every business owner would say: For the right number, I’ll sell,” he said.
But as Cowan constructs a new deli-restaurant near his Cherry Hill home, he is taking a hard look at operating two deli-restaurants simultaneously, at age 67.
“I’m not looking to retire, but I’m looking to make my life a little easier,” he told The Inquirer. “Having a store around the corner from my house and maybe [to] wind down a little bit would be a nice thing for me. This would be my exit plan.”
Would that mean that he might close Famous, if a deal failed to materialize?
“No no no no no,” Cowan said Thursday night. “That I wouldn’t do. From a dollars-and-cents standpoint, why would I do that? It’s profitable. I have the ability to [keep both going]. Someone could buy the business and I would keep the real estate. That’s always an option.”
Cowan confirmed speculation by the Philadelphia Business Journal that his asking price was $5.95 million — $1 million more than his asking price in 2016, a previous listing when he was kicking tires and feeling the market.
That $6 million would include the building on the southwest corner of Fourth and Bainbridge Streets, the business, and the name — the whole ball of matzo. The deli’s oversize inventory of mustard is not included.
Cowan hopes to open the new deli — Radin’s, a family name — this summer in Short Hills Shopping Center in Cherry Hill. Cowan has started construction at the former Short Hills Deli, which closed in 2021.
Why the sudden buzz around Famous? Cowan said he listed it formally with MPN Realty last fall, but the firm recently posted it on its site. “I haven’t kept it a secret,” he said. (In fact, Cowan mentioned that Famous was for sale in November when he told The Inquirer that he was opening in Cherry Hill.)
Famous, founded by the Auspitz family in 1933 in what was then a garment district of Jewish immigrants, is an anachronistic amalgam of corner grocery, takeout counter, and restaurant. Cowan, a fourth-generation Brooklyn deli man who had run popular delis in Philadelphia, Cherry Hill and the Jersey Shore, bought the business and property from David Auspitz, son of the Hungarian immigrant who opened it. Sam Auspitz died in 1989.
Cowan maintained Auspitz’s tradition of overstuffed sandwiches and its status as an Election Day politicos’ hangout. At the time, Auspitz kept the Famous 4th Street cookie business founded by his wife, Janie, whom he met in the deli in 1976. The couple later sold the cookie business, which operates a stand at Reading Terminal Market.
The opening of Radin’s will mark a Cherry Hill homecoming for Cowan, who opened the Kibitz Room, about a mile away in Holly Ravine Plaza, in February 2001. Cowan later sold the Kibitz Room to onetime manager Neil Parish, whose son Brandon now operates it.