Houston’s Kenny and Ziggy’s Deli visiting NOLA, Baton Rouge

January 22, 2014

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Three months after co-hosting a deli lunch with LSU Hillel before the LSU-Texas A&M football game, the famous Kenny and Ziggy’s Deli in Houston returns to Louisiana this month for two events.

On Feb. 8 from 6 to 8 p.m., there will be a New York Nosh Night at B’nai Israel in Baton Rouge. Congregational president Marc Sager said “What a great opportunity to meet Ziggy and enjoy his food — a ‘Jewish Foodies’ dream!”

Tickets are $40 in advance and $50 at the door, with limited availability — and the tickets are almost sold out. Ticket holders can arrive at any time during the event and will be able to enjoy a buffet of corned beef, pastrami and turkey with all the traditional trimmings, a cheese tray, hot dog station, chopped liver and smoked whitefish salad, and nova lox with cocktail bagels. There will also be an assorted dessert station.

Also on Feb. 8 at 6 p.m., the deli will provide dinner in New Orleans at Touro Synagogue’s Texas Hold’em poker tournament. Players can buy in for $100, with dinner included. Non-players can sign up as spectators for $50 and enjoy the dinner. Preregistration is required here.

The November event at LSU was to help recruit members for LSU Hillel and establish a Friends of LSU Hillel for future fundraising. Next year a similar event is being planned for College Station.

A third-generation deli chef, Ziggy Gruber follows in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, who opened the Rialto, the first deli on Broadway, with customers including Ethel Merman, the Marx brothers and Milton Berle. Before opening Kenny & Ziggy’s, he had Ziggy G’s on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, a regular stop for a wide range of stars.

This past July, Gruber married Mimi McCaughey of Baton Rouge at the Dohany Synagogue in Budapest, Hungary, where his grandfather had his Bar Mitzvah.

He proposed to her during Mardi Gras, having arranged for a five-minute ride on one of the floats. As the float passed her and her family, he held up a sign asking her to marry him.