Carl's Deli is a St. Louis landmark

In early spring of 2020, there was a beacon of hope where Clayton Road meets Demun Avenue: Carl’s light was on. Despite the pandemic in our midst, the old deli was still going. Owner Matt Lewis was still putting pickles into bags, sending pastrami sandwiches out into those early-on, ice-blue afternoons. “It was a new challenge, but we never once closed,” said Lewis. “People wanted what they knew.” 

It makes sense that they came here. Carl’s is a comfy old couch – a little saggy, a touch frayed, but always there, just where you need it to be. Know it by its mossy green awning, the screen door with its squeak, the neon sign across the window, and the steady influx of customers hoping against hope that the line won’t be long.

It usually is. Come during peak lunch hours, and the line winds through the shop, clogging the gaps between the tables. If you do snag a seat, there won’t be much of a view beyond the belt buckles of customers wishing they’d come a little earlier. Or later. But it all works out. 

There are plenty of other sandwiches on this menu, but it’s no secret that the hot pastrami is king – and that’s what most people come for. Lewis said in the average week, Carl’s gets through more than 200 pounds of pastrami alone, easy. 

While urban myth suggests there’s a half-pound of peppered beef in each of these Heffalumps, Lewis said there’s no science to this. He builds each sandwich “by eye,” and after 37 years, the man – who’s been making sandwiches since he was a boy – must know his stuff. 

 

 

Lewis paid attention “in class” at the hip of his mentor, Bill Carl. Bill’s father opened Carl’s Deli in the Delmar Loop in 1947. Bill took over running the shop in the 1960s, moving the business to Clayton Road in 1969.

It isn’t glam at Carl’s. Carl’s has nothing whatsoever to do with glam, and there are zero airs here. But who wants them? Who cares that the meat case is a little rough and ready? (The cheese case too, for that matter.) Or that the menu board is yellowed with age? Lewis said he can’t remember when anything new happened here. “Ain’t that sad?” he said. No, not really. Nothing new needs to happen at Carl’s, and that’s the point.  

Lewis estimated that over the course of his 37 years at Carl’s, he must have eaten “literally hundreds” of pastrami sandwiches. But not anymore. “I make 150 sandwiches a day,” he said. “You go off the idea after a while.”

The beef comes weekly from New York. The rye – lovely and soft – from Pete’s Italian Baking Co. on the Hill. Aside from those details, Lewis won’t give up the secrets to his success – the spices he employs, the “pixie dust” he sprinkles into things. 

You can find the world at Carl’s. People from all walks of life come here for lunch, all with one thing in common: a taste for cured beef the way Matt Lewis does it. It’s a fine commonality, and don’t our preferences say a lot about who we are?

Customers like Tom and Eleanor Jennings have been coming to Carl’s for 50 years, almost as long as they’ve been married. “We used to live in the neighborhood,” Eleanor said. And then, looking a little sad, “We moved to Chesterfield. It’s an occasion when we come now.” She was running her eyes over the menu above Lewis’ head, but really didn’t need to. “I always have the same. It’s always the same for me,” she said. 

Others, like Steve Nielson from De Soto, are relatively new to the place. He blew in the door as though blustered by a stiff wind and ordered two pastrami sandwiches. “One for now. One for the ride home,” he said. 

6401 Clayton Road, Clayton, 314.721.2393, carlsdelistl.com