Jeremy Kneller-Hernandez is the mastermind behind Kneller’s Delicatessen, a Jewish East-Coast-inspired deli.

As Jeremy Kneller-Hernandez and a few colleagues walked through the empty space on Speedway and Tucson Boulevard, they posed an important question: how do we make this as attractive as possible?

The answer for Kneller-Hernandez was obvious: they simply don’t.

He didn’t want extravagant lights or crazy colorful murals on the walls. He just wants to bring some east coast nostalgia to the west coast.

He wants customers to feel as though they’ve stepped inside a time capsule as soon as they swing the door open. The space will be buzzing with noise, with memorabilia hanging from the walls and bottles of mustard and mayo lining the shelves.

People will be sitting at tables, stuffing their faces with bagels and lox before heading out to start their mornings. You grab a ticket and flip through the pages of the morning paper, patiently waiting for your number to be called.

While he envisions the space to be simple and humble, it’s his bright, bold flavors that will light up the room.

Kneller-Hernandez is the mastermind behind Kneller’s Delicatessen, located at 2545 E. Speedway, a Jewish deli that’ll bring knishes, lox and pastrami to midtown.

“I just want the food and hospitality to shine,” Kneller-Hernandez said.

Growing up, food was a big part of Kneller-Hernandez’s family. Both of his grandmothers cooked and he eventually learned a few things from them in the kitchen. When summer rolled around, his parents would drop him off at his grandparents’ house in New York, where he would escape the heat and enjoy the fast-paced city.

Once he turned 15, he started bussing tables at restaurants, doing everything from cooking on the line to dishwashing. He was in and out of restaurant jobs for years after that. There was just something about the food industry that kept calling him back.

“I tried other jobs and other positions and I think mainly why I keep going back is that I just love the passion and fast-paced chaos,” Kneller-Hernandez said.

Kneller-Hernandez is really good at helping others. Whether it was being a chef somewhere, being the director of operations or doing bar consulting, he is good at fixing problems and making it work for those in charge. Soon, he found himself in a partnership with a friend of his, starting pop-up food stand La Merguez, which specialized in Moroccan street food.

But the imposter syndrome started setting in, making him feel like he wasn’t really selling himself. When La Merguez decided to close in September, nothing was stopping Kneller-Hernandez from doing something that represented who he is.

“It takes a certain amount of vulnerability and balls to really dive in, take the jump and sell yourself … I've been wanting to do this forever. There are no delis in Tucson, especially a Jewish-style east-coast deli, nothing like it,” Kneller-Hernandez said. “I know that I have a set of skills and I wasn’t scared anymore to apply them to my own vision.”

Bagel breakfast sandwiches are one of the specialties at Kneller’s Delicatessen.

That’s when Kneller’s Delicatessen started to take shape. For the past four months, Kneller-Hernandez has been catering during the week and popping up at markets on the weekend, serving dishes you’d see at a Jewish deli back east.

“My first pop-up was in Cyclovia. A friend of mine was having a little pop-up in front of Cyclovia and invited me,” Kneller-Hernandez said. “It was nerve-wracking, but once I started interacting and seeing people's reactions to the food it gave me more confidence in knowing that, OK, this is the right path. It feels good.”

Over the past four months, his pop-up started to gain more traction, with the Jewish community and east-coast transplants flocking to get their taste of nostalgia.

A knish is a potato pastry that is served with mustard and sauerkraut or pickles.

Some of Kneller-Hernandez's most beloved dishes on his menu are his knishes and lox. A knish (pronounced like kuh-nish) is a small potato pastry. To make his, Kneller-Hernandez stuffs mashed potatoes and caramelized onions into pastry dough, seasoning it with thyme and then he fries them. Once they are ready, you can enjoy them with deli mustard and sauerkraut, giving your mouth an explosion of savory and sour flavors.

For his lox, it’s a much longer process. Lox is a cured salmon dish, with Kneller-Hernandez describing it as in between a smoked salmon and sashimi.

First, he freezes the salmon overnight in order to kill all the bacteria. The next day, it’s ready to be cured and it bathes in salt, spices, juniper and dill. He then flips it every day until its ready to be served on top of a fresh cream cheese bagel, courtesy of Bubbe’s Bagels.

House-cured lox is one of Kneller-Hernandez’s most popular dishes at his pop-ups.

Once the deli is up and running, Kneller-Hernandez is planning to serve knishes, house-cured lox, bagel breakfast sandwiches, Jewish-style smoked brisket, smoked white fish salad, New York-style hot dogs and he’ll be jarring his own pickles. He’ll even have rotating specials like pastrami, corned beef and chopped liver.

Don’t worry, there will be vegan and gluten-free options too.

Right now, the lights are on and Kneller-Hernandez is working hard to transform the former carniceria into a classic, east coast Jewish deli. He’s hoping to open the doors by early summer.

Until then, we’ll be counting down the days until we can throw on our New York Yankees baseball caps and head over to Kneller’s Delicatessen for a lox bagel to get our mornings off to a delicious start.

Kneller’s Delicatessen has a few more pop-ups before they focus solely on getting the brick-and-mortar open. You can find Kneller-Hernandez at Brickbox Brewery, 220 E. Broadway on Friday, Jan. 24 from 7 a.m. to noon. He will also be at Hello Bicycle & Café, 3702 E. Hardy Dr., on Sunday, Jan. 26 from 9 a.m. until he’s sold out.

He’ll also be at the St. Philip’s Plaza Market, 4280 N. Campbell Ave., on Saturday, Jan. 25; and Saturday-Sunday, Feb. 1-2. He’ll be there from 10 a.m. until he’s sold out.


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Jamie Donnelly is the food writer for #ThisIsTucson. Contact her via e-mail at jdonnelly@tucson.com