Many a spectacular employee (Junketeers they are called) filtered through the deli. He built the giant wine wall with my brother Gary, among other things. He traversed the Bay Area speeding around in his giant truck picking up fresh produce and other supplies from the same vendors he has dealt with for 40 years. He also doled out little “chewing candies” to kids and meat scraps to dogs.
Cindy handled the business-end of The Junket, and was also the social butterfly, flitting around her place, chatting with customers, handing out treats, donating to causes, and multi-tasking like nobody's Headcheese… And Bruno handled customer-to-go transactions at his cash register with the utmost care, “NO… you MUST take a napkin!” He also vacuumed/swept the entire place, lifting up all the wooden chairs to the tops of the tables (next to his own hand-hewn napkin holders)…every single night. You’ll not find two more vibrant 88/89 year-olds doing what they did. The Junket was their "Fountain of Youth”. They absolutely loved their so called “work” at their beloved Junket and had been “working” together just about everyday for the past 40 years, until the pandemic forced them to “shelter at home”. They have been happily married for 65 years. Lived in El Cerrito for a couple years and then moved to the beautiful Shire of Kensington.īruno and Cindy are now in their nineties. “San Francisco, open your Golden Gate, you’ll let nobody wait outside your door” – Those song lyrics eventually rang true for them. They did not know any of the guests, but there was a money tree! Their generous Canadian landlords threw them a wedding reception. They were married ‘below the alter’ in a church because Cindy was not Catholic, and that preacher also told them their marriage would ‘never work’. 6’5” Bruno (and Sean Connery doppelgänger) could only stand up in the center. Marie with practically nothing and knowing no one. They emigrated first to the icy land of Sault Ste. A “Golden” bridge in San Francisco? the Land of Opportunity? The young lovers headed west. They fell in love at a dance party in Germany and yearned to flee depressed Europe and start life elsewhere. He was a young teen during WW2 and witness to many atrocities. Bruno grew up in Southern Germany, Schwabenland. Her mother Gwendolyn Cleopatra ran a straw hat shop and also worked for Noël Coward (the playwright), who lived nearby at Firefly, in pirate Henry Morgan’s former home. She grew up in Galina, near Ian Flemings (James Bond) Goldeneye estate. Bruno asked Cindy to marry him and put a piece of wire on her finger, and off they went to find the Land of Plenty.Ĭindy had left her large family in Jamaica to study nursing in England after WW2. They got engaged the night they met, despite the fact they did not speak the same language. They were however, familiar with “unknown territory”. They ventured into “unknown territory” with no restaurant experience.
They quit their corporate jobs at age 50, because they wanted to work for themselves. (I do remember talk of an Earthworm Farm or Almond Ranch?). Bruno and Cindy opened the The Junket in 1979 at the El Cerrito Plaza. It’s not often that you find a family-run business these days. The Junket was truly a one-of-a-kind place. “Tales from the Deli” is sure to be a bestseller. If those Deli slicers could talk! Countless stories of love, mystery, Clotted Cream, Limburger, Spotted Dick, Köstritzer and…Headcheese. Who knew that longtime Bruno and Cindy’s Labor of Love, and Fountain of Youth, The Junket Delicatessen & Café established in 1979 in El Cerrito would have such a 42 year deli-cious run. The Junket’s shelf life expired December 30, 2021
0 kommentar(er)
